Re: open source alternatives to Quicken

["Charlie Bennett-3" <user=191@nabble.blu.org>]

re Tom's questions. 

Journaling too much in the software sense of the word, not the 
accounting sense.  There appears to be a backup file after every save. 
These pile up after a while and can make it ugly when you need to 
actually find one and revert. 

I've never had the joy of using QuickBooks or Peachtree.  Before Quicken 
it was pen and paper and a handful of 'reserved' data registers on my 
HP-12C for various current balances. 

I was doing Quicken since '93, including a longish stint using Quicken 8 
for DOS under DOSEMU.  By my last version, Quicken 2000? I'd honed the 
reports and graphs to things I liked to see.  I'm just not there yet in 
GNUCash. 

As for splits - it's like everybody else's splits.  It's just that the 
double-entry stuff makes it feel a little weird.  So if I want to enter 
my paycheck as splits, the net value and all of the *deductions* show up 
on the DEPOSIT column while the gross income line items end up in the 
*WITHDRAWL* column.  Splitting a CVS debit card transaction between 
prescriptions, candy bars and cash back, being a debit against the main 
ledger of course reverses this convention.  I still find this to be 
monsterously counter-intuitive.  Maybe it's me. 

As for the other alternatives...  If it was coded in Java, I don't want 
to know about it.  Given Sun's recent behavior, this bias is beginning 
to change but I haven't had time to wrap my head around IcedT yet. 
GNUCash is a ton of scheme code around a crunchy C core and being an 
Emacs fanboy, that kind of architecture suits me fine.  For 
cross-platform use I fire up an X server and ssh -Y into a real 
computer. 

ccb 


On Mon, 2008-02-18 at 20:11 -0500, Tom Metro wrote: 
> Charles C. Bennett, Jr. wrote: 
> > Don't let the 'double-entry' thing scare you. 
> 
> The family member is already familiar with basic accounting practices, 
> so that's not a problem. 
> 
> 
> Doug wrote: 
> > Underneath it all, Quicken was _not_ a dual entry accounting system. 
> 
> Really? I never used Quicken much. This same family member started out 
> with Quicken several years ago, and I got annoyed by the constant upsell 
> (which I was seeing from Intuit due to my own use of QuickBooks), plus 
> an overloaded UI, and switched them over to Money, which ended up having 
> an equally cluttered UI. 
> 
> 
> > The system developed by those monks so many centuries ago was skipped 
> > as "too complicated". It does take a while to understand, but dual 
> > entry accounting is the way all businesses work, and I think should 
> > be the foundation of any accounting software. 
> 
> I don't think changing the labels is that big of a deal, but I agree 
> that the they should stick to the fundamental principles of accounting. 
> 
> 
> > GnuCash rocks. 
> 
> But compared to what, besides Quicken? Have you tried any other open 
> source alternatives? 
> 
> 
> > I did some online banking, and those folks forced me to upgrade to 
> > Quicken 2000... They could force me to change software whenever 
> > they needed more revenue. 
> 
> Yup, same thing with Quickbooks. Bugs would persist from year to year. 
> Upgrades cost money, and rarely added desired features. What really 
> would annoy me was the sales-pitches built-in to the software for 
> services they were selling. That seemed tacky in software that cost 
> hundreds of dollars. I just choose to freeze the version I had, and it's 
> been working adequately ever since. 
> 
> 
> Charles C. Bennett, Jr. wrote: 
> > There are downsides: it journals way too much for my taste. 
> 
> I don't follow. With programs like Quickbooks, some accounts have 
> specialized registers, but they're all basically journals, and in some 
> programs all transactions can be viewed from the general ledger. 
> 
> 
> > The graphing and reporting stuff lags developmentally.  I've yet 
> > to get the kind of monthly chart of net worth trend line against assets 
> > and liabilities that was fairly straightforward in Quicken. 
> 
> Neither Quicken or Money seemed to produce really useful reports, in my 
> opinion. You could get the data out, but it took a fair bit of 
> customizing of the reports to do it. 
> 
> 
> > The way splits are done in the context of double-entry will take some 
> > careful concentration for a few sessions until you learn to accept 
> > the metaphor. 
> 
> Quicken, Money, and Quickbooks all support splits. Is GnuCash 
> significantly different? 
> 
> 
> One of the things that gave me pause when setting up GnuCash was setting 
> an opening balance on accounts. They have a new account wizard (or 
> Druid, as they call them) that easily lets you do this, but if you skip 
> that option and then want to set the balance after the account has been 
> created, there didn't seem to be any obvious way to do it. (Aside from 
> just adding a misc. journal entry.) 
> 
> Thanks for the added feedback on GnuCash. 
> 
>   -Tom 
> 
> -- 
> Tom Metro 
> Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA 
> "Enterprise solutions through open source." 
> Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
>