Proposed: Funding Open Source Accounting software

[Ean Schuessler]

Agreed. In the past I had mentioned Apache's Open for Business project.
It does fairly sophisticated accounting as well as multi-facility
inventory management, customer relationship management, tracking project
hours and manufacturing line control. For actual small to medium size
businesses, the ledger is just a part of the problem.

I think one of the largest gaps for new businesses, especially
non-technical ones, is understanding how to get started. Having a LiveCD
with an easy installer that gave you an accounting appliance with one of
these systems could be a big aid. The software is already there, its the
training and packaging that are the big gap. This is why companies like
Quickbooks and Microsoft are able to sell a fairly expensive product
even though there are Free Software equivalents. A "Mom and Pop"
sandwich shop needs something that they can turn on and use.

On 05/02/2013 03:24 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> There is open source accounting software. LedgerSMB, Tryton, GnuCash...
> 
> Why are we reinventing the wheel? If we want to support better NPO
> integration doesn't it make sense to start with that?