Accounting systems

[Nicholai Burton]

Is anyone using an open source accounting system? We could go Quickbooks, but that's desktop software, and, well, we don't have any desks... I had a friend do some evaluations and he feels FrontAccounting will be a good fit, but I'm curious if you're using any open source, web-based stuff to keep up with your ledger, AR, AP, etc.

[Michael Carnell]

This is for the Film Society? Any idea if FrontAccounting will tie to CiviCRM? Or how about the web based version of QuickBooks?

I just saw an article from TechMentor about accounting systems for non-profits. Is the Film Society set up with them yet?

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Michael Carnell - Charleston, SC

http://www.MichaelCarnell.com

On Aug 10, 2011, at 8:45 PM, Nicholai Burton <nichola...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is anyone using an open source accounting system? We could go Quickbooks, but that's desktop software, and, well, we don't have any desks... I had a friend do some evaluations and he feels FrontAccounting will be a good fit, but I'm curious if you're using any open source, web-based stuff to keep up with your ledger, AR, AP, etc.

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[Nicholai Burton]

Yep, for the film society. With CiviCRM I can export to CSV with a couple clicks, then import that into FrontAccounting (or whatever else we choose) as register entries with a couple more. Both apps also have an API, so it wouldn't be hard to write a little jobby in PHP to make them talk to each other.

On the Quickbooks front, we'd be paying $40 a month to get the features we need. In mission-related terms, a year of QB equals licensing for three films, or a micro-grant to a local filmmaker to complete a project.

I have no idea what a TechMentor is; the Internets tell me it's a custom software development shop in Oregon...

[Michael Carnell]

Sorry! I mention TechSoup. Tired and my Braun is failing.

I totally agree about the QuickBooks fees though - unless you could get it from TechSoup.

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Michael Carnell
Charleston, SC
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[Michael Carnell]

I just installed FrontAccounting so I could take a look at it. Very
powerful! Of course I am no accountant, and accounting baffles me,
but it looked good. Also looked like the user would really need to
know what they are doing. In other words, not so attractive or user
friendly as something like QuickBooks or Peachtree, but far cheaper. I
guess question then goes back to the old decision of saving money vs
saving time and aggravation.

BTW, this is the article I was referring to on TechSoup - "A Few Good
Accounting Packages: Nonprofit consultants recommend accounting
software packages", http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/software/page5144.cfm

Michael

[Nicholai Burton]

It's definitely got more features than QuickBooks, but you can turn off the stuff you don't need. In terms of comparable products, this is on par with Sage or Financial Edge, but free. We've got the tech knowledge in-house (me) to install and maintain the back end, but we don't have an accountant on our volunteer roster to design a chart of accounts and run the books. All of our stuff is in spreadsheets right now, and it's more of a balance sheet than anything.