3 ms·

This article has some real problems. Here is one. > Such systems are unwieldy to work with and difficult to get started with. In truth, many of them appear to

This article has some real problems. Here is one. > Such systems are unwieldy to work with and difficult to get started with. In truth, many of them appear to have been developed as platforms for consulting businesses, though surely nobody would deliberately make their software complex and tricky just to motivate clients to purchase their services. Or perhaps some businesses have complications to deal with that go beyond what a newsletter website needs? Some businesses have inventory, subsidiaries, multiple currencies, have to report sales tax in multiple countries with ever changing requirements (hence the support and updates that this writer doesn't think are required). Some companies have local statutory books that are different than their group books. Really it is a bit like learning 'echo "hello"' and calling oneself a programmer. Then maybe one might ask why are lwn making Linux so complicated...

Nevermark 3y ago
> Or perhaps some businesses have complications to deal with that go beyond what a newsletter website needs? So ... perhaps there should be a version of Quickbooks that serves the simpler needs of smaller customers better? Like: Simple. Desktop. Requires no upgrades as long as its functionality at-time-of-purchase continues to serve well. No forcing of upgrades via dropping of old formats, etc. I also have given up on Quickbooks.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  Imagine you were relying on Quickbooks, and a major taxation change, like the European VAT OneStopShop came out. How would you deal with that without updates? What about the UKs Making Tax Digital, that would be tricky too. That wasn't the point I was discussing, but there is an answer anyway.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    Certainly charging for upgrades with useful new and critical functionality is reasonable. But reasonableness would also price even critical functionality relative to how hard it was to actually implement. I.e. don't hold hostage a customers' investments in a software product. Don't force customers to pay a ransom to get a simple-to-implement feature.
projektfu 3y ago
I think it's a legitimate complaint that packages like LedgerSMB are meant for larger businesses, with internal accounting departments, and do not have a default that works better for small businesses. Quickbooks has the concept of deleting a transaction and it resets the dependencies of that transaction. GnuCash does that pretty well, too. LedgerSMB expects a reversing transaction, so you are not really able to make mistakes the way a small business owner might. You have to start out at a higher level of accounting know-how. Putting LedgerSMB together with an external accountant/tax preparer/bookkeeper using it is a no-go. They already roll their eyes at Zoho Books and I imagine they didn't like Xero until enough people used it. Asking them to use your own LedgerSMB install, they'll just nope out. GnuCash is fine for the solo but I don't think the external people will like it. I think LWN will do what it takes to make the reports that the accountant will need, but as it stands it is not ready for that out of the box in my opinion. Other packages, like Odoo, treat double-entry accounting as a trade secret and so it's not really open-source. There are add-ons but their level of maturity is not clear. If I tried to use ledger (plain-text accounting) I think even my business consultant would tell me to take a hike. I used it when I did a little contract work and it was fine, but my needs were very simple. Still, getting off of QB and into Zoho for my business has been great. Everything can be exported if I need (to CSV files) and it handles almost all of my needs. But it's not open source.

Nevermark 3y ago

> Or perhaps some businesses have complications to deal with that go beyond what a newsletter website needs? So ... perhaps there should be a version of Quickbooks that serves the simpler needs of smaller customers better? Like: Simple. Desktop. Requires no upgrades as long as its functionality at-time-of-purchase continues to serve well. No forcing of upgrades via dropping of old formats, etc. I also have given up on Quickbooks.

jimnotgym 3y ago
Imagine you were relying on Quickbooks, and a major taxation change, like the European VAT OneStopShop came out. How would you deal with that without updates? What about the UKs Making Tax Digital, that would be tricky too. That wasn't the point I was discussing, but there is an answer anyway.
- Nevermark 3y ago
  Certainly charging for upgrades with useful new and critical functionality is reasonable. But reasonableness would also price even critical functionality relative to how hard it was to actually implement. I.e. don't hold hostage a customers' investments in a software product. Don't force customers to pay a ransom to get a simple-to-implement feature.

projektfu 3y ago

I think it's a legitimate complaint that packages like LedgerSMB are meant for larger businesses, with internal accounting departments, and do not have a default that works better for small businesses. Quickbooks has the concept of deleting a transaction and it resets the dependencies of that transaction. GnuCash does that pretty well, too. LedgerSMB expects a reversing transaction, so you are not really able to make mistakes the way a small business owner might. You have to start out at a higher level of accounting know-how. Putting LedgerSMB together with an external accountant/tax preparer/bookkeeper using it is a no-go. They already roll their eyes at Zoho Books and I imagine they didn't like Xero until enough people used it. Asking them to use your own LedgerSMB install, they'll just nope out. GnuCash is fine for the solo but I don't think the external people will like it. I think LWN will do what it takes to make the reports that the accountant will need, but as it stands it is not ready for that out of the box in my opinion. Other packages, like Odoo, treat double-entry accounting as a trade secret and so it's not really open-source. There are add-ons but their level of maturity is not clear. If I tried to use ledger (plain-text accounting) I think even my business consultant would tell me to take a hike. I used it when I did a little contract work and it was fine, but my needs were very simple. Still, getting off of QB and into Zoho for my business has been great. Everything can be exported if I need (to CSV files) and it handles almost all of my needs. But it's not open source.