Open source billing applications
Instead of using an online billing application, perhaps there’s an open source application we could install on our own servers? What does an open source billing or accounting application need to do? What are our mandatory requirements and nice-to-haves?
Requirements
- Must have an API – so that we can automate the exchange of data between systems
- Must run on a vanilla LAMP setup (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) – so that we can host it on one of our existing servers and access it from any web browser
- Must offer basic book-keeping functions
- Invoices issued, outstanding & paid
- Expenses
- P&L reporting with adjustable dates
- CSV or Excel export
- VAT return & adjustments
- Allocate different VAT codes for different countries
- Bank Reconciliation
- Credit card reconciliation
- Regular monthly bills & memorised transactions
Nice to have
- Easy to use – so our accounts people don’t throw a wobbly
- QuickBooks import – would save some time moving over
Applications
After an extensive google and freshmeat search, I found plenty of candidates. I went through a fairly ruthless first-pass-chop and rejected any that were:
- Not being actively developed – (based on SourceForge activity)
- Not well documented in English
- Had crazy websites
- Were overkill for a small company
- Didn’t meet all of our mandatory requirements
If I had persevered, I might have ejected some for more than one reason but I only gave them one chance. In all, that excluded almost every package – listed below for completeness.
Shortlisted (in alphabetical order)
- Dolphin Accounting – Dolphin were kind enough to set up a demo for me but our accounts people found it over complicated and there was some confusion whether Dolphin’s free ‘lite’ version would do what we wanted to do anyway. They said it has a very clunky layout and seemed complicated to enter purchases because they’re tied into inventory. They couldn’t find anything which resembled a VAT return or a P&L report.
- Front Accounting – We installed it on a test server and let our accounts people have a poke around to see if it would do what we wanted it to do. They said no. Aside from hating its layout and usability, they said there was no reconciliation for bank accounts, invoice and payment was way too complicated, no VAT return
- Web ERP – Our accounts people played with their online demo and said “Very clunky to use, not user friendly and impossible to get to grips with after using QuickBooks.”
Rejected (in alphabetical order)
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Conclusions & Next Steps
Despite having looked at and evaluated almost 50 open source book-keeping applications, not one of them came anywhere close to replacing QuickBooks.
I think this is probably the main reason why QuickBooks continues to dominate the small business market and why open source accounting packages have not really taken-off.
There is clearly a need for a regular LAMP-based application which is accessible from a browser and which offers a similar level of usability to QuickBooks. Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist at the moment and, judging by the number of applications who have tried and failed, I doubt there will be a serious contender any time soon.
For us, that means re-evaluating hosted and online applications with a different set of criteria than before. At the start of this project, we were mostly concerned with their invoicing capabilities and payment gateway integration. Now we need to look at them again purely for their book-keeping prowess.
Next step: Re-evaluating online applications for book-keeping only
8. January 2009 at 5:15 pm :
Most Quickbooks users run the native client (I know they also have a web version but it’s not nearly as popular). So to discount an app that requires a client would seem to be an easy win for Quickbooks, as they have a native advantage in your comparison. Note, for the apps that require things like perl or PostgreSQL you might try using a linux distribution like Fedora or Ubuntu which make those trivial to install, or have them pre-installed. PostgreSQL is the most robust open source database, so it’s expected that would be a requirement for many of the apps.
28. January 2009 at 12:37 pm :
BTW just re-read your comments on some of the others
Postgresql is easy to install nowadays, don’t let that put you off any pgsql system.
Plus it is WAY WAY WAY better than mysql for mission critical data (which accounting data is) IMHO.
Martyn
31. March 2009 at 6:08 am :
Frustrating, isn’t it. Back in the mid 90s I did a big group software review for Personal Computer World magazine and found all the available accounting packages on the market were sadly lacking. The only ones with redeeming features were Quicken (Intuit’s sadly dumped “personal finance” software which could even handle VAT on cash accounting or accrual basis) and TAS Books.
Sad to see that very little has changed, except perhaps that one of my old front-runners is defunct. If I didn’t really need an online solution I’d even look as TAS Books again.
18. April 2009 at 10:38 pm :
Thank you for this – you lead me to Bamboo, which wasn’t enough for you but was EXACTLY what my small business needed!
22. April 2009 at 4:32 pm :
I agree with Bill McGonigle – the “web-only” requirement is somewhat out of step with real-world usage of accounting software. The PostBooks Edition of xTuple ERP is a GUI client (runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux) that connects to a PostgreSQL database (and I’d echo Martyn’s praise of PostgreSQL as well).
There’s an easy, all-in-one installer available for free download, and there are dozens of how-to videos as well. There’s more at http://www.xtuple.com and http://www.xtuple.org.
8. August 2009 at 8:37 pm :
First of all, not sure who said that Quickbooks owns the market, but I totally disagree with this.
Second, there are a number of exceedingly good replacements out there. Do not ‘give up’ just because someone says the interface is ‘clunky’ or ‘gee they use Postgress”. Boink!
If you are in business, you are expected to ‘grow’. If you do not ‘grow’ it means that a competitor will soon be eating your lunch. So why think small? Why limit yourself to some little check register program. And why get totally roped into Intuit’s offerings (which are pretty stale nowadays)?
Do seriously consider moving off the Wintel platform. Big business does not run serious accounting on Windows2003. Medium sizes business’ do, but they soon get frustrated. Why go through all that?, and pay hefty licenses besides. And don’t forget all the trouble with viruses. These little buggers – which target Wintel – are expensive.
Do what smart, forward thinking business people do. Use Unix. Think Oracle runs on Win2003? Yes it does, but nobody uses it on that platform. Too many security issues, too expensive, too slow, and too unreliable.
Want to run Unix, but don’t have a clue? Try ubuntu. It’s Linux, a close relative of unix, and it will take you where you want to go. Once you try it, you will not, repeat, you will not, go back to Windows. There is simply no comparison.
If you are serious about your business, and want a serious accounting program, there’s good news! There are some really good accounting packages out there, and they are free or really inexpensive.
DO check out SQL-Ledger. This is a serious ERP for ‘growing’ companies. Your investment in time will be paid back many many times over. (And whoever was complaining about the developer selling the manuals to earn a living – give me a break. If you can’t afford to buy a manual then you are really kidding yourself. Profit (and it’s inexpensive anyway) is not a dirty word. Dieter does a really great job. Look at his ‘what is new’ on his web site.
If you have a small business, and figure you may never move beyond that – perhaps because you like small, and many do, then check out MoneyDance.
Both of these are excellent products, and there are many many more.
Good Luck.