Re: open source alternatives to Quicken

["Tom Metro-12" <user=71@nabble.blu.org>]

 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/

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