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Good luck. Many layers of the financial system for small and medium businesses are used to working with QB. It's a means of communication. You can hire peopl

Good luck. Many layers of the financial system for small and medium businesses are used to working with QB. It's a means of communication. You can hire people who know it. It integrates with every bank and every, well, everything you might need. You accountant --internal or external-- knows it and has a process to work with it. Etc. While FOSS is great, it isn't always better. I think FOSS works well when you have a deeply committed, enthusiastic and dedicated community around a pain point or a need. There are great examples of this, GIMP, KiCAD, Krita and various 3D printer tools being examples of this. Accounting software? I'll believe it when, one day, I walk into my CPA's office and he enthusiastically tells me how he is asking the firm's hundreds of customers to switch to a FOSS solution. In case it was missed, that was sarcasm. I cannot possibly imagine an accounting firm with hundreds of clients both engaging in turning their entire practice upside-down and having their clients endure untold pain just to save a few hundred bucks on software that just happens to work just fine today and has for decades.

themerone 3y ago
I know a small business running bespoke accounting software with a lineage predating the PC era. They have some very specialized, industry specific, reporting and invoicing needs that can't be met with a general purpose purpose software. An application provides a great way to modernize their software without a full rewrite.
- robomartin 3y ago
  Of course, there are lots of businesses who fit this description. This is nothing new. That does not mean that millions don't benefit from and are happy using Quickbooks. Before the mob interprets what I am saying through their reality distortion field, I should note I am NOT hating on FOSS and defending closed-source software as general categories. There is such a thing as useful industry-standard software on both sides of that divide. And it is perfectly OK to point this out. This doesn't have to be a war. This shouldn't be twisted into hatred or attacks on FOSS or even non-FOSS software. Nobody has the moral high ground. There is no such thing. These are tools. Some are free and open, some are not. And that's perfectly OK. Sometimes a little critical thinking and reason is a good thing.
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    Why are you so aggressive in your tone? > This is nothing new. That does not mean that millions don't benefit Nobody claimed this is new or that not millions benefit or are happy with QB (source needed though). > Before the mob interprets what I am saying through their reality distortion field Which mob? Reality distortion? Nobody was accusing you of hating FOSS, why do you feel you need to defend yourself? > This doesn't have to be a war. To me there was no indication it is a war. Why do you feel it is? > Nobody has the moral high ground. There is no such thing. Bold claim. There is no such thing as moral high ground?
    - wrycoder 3y ago
      Actually, I appreciate the definite opinions and colorful language. And, the POV expressed is realistic, IMO.
    - robomartin 3y ago
      > Why are you so aggressive in your tone? You are reading something into my comments that isn't there. Don't take it personally, none of it is aimed at the person I was replying to anyway. > source needed though Ah, the HN response when... Evident to anyone who actually knows anything about how businesses work. Still, here, go to page 5: https://www.codat.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Codat_Guide-to-Accounting-Software-Market_July-2020.pdf https://www.codat.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Codat_Guide-... This is for 2020. Numbers for 2023 are likely larger. Quickbooks offerings have a 75% dominance of the market. And, for a good reason. This is the standard I was talking about. Again, nobody gives a shit about FOSS, only us nerds. In other words, those of us who likely live two or more standard deviations from the mean. Go ask your local dentist if she gives a shit about FOSS. Everywhere else under the curve, people want to focus on their core business and get on with the job of making money, supporting their families, innovating and growing their business. Their accountant/CPA says "Use Quickbooks. It will make the process simpler". That's what they do. The cost is a rounding error for any non-trivial business. FOSS does not matter. What matters is solving a non-revenue-generating problem in a way that does not consume clock cycles and moving on to more important things. > Which mob? Reality distortion? Nobody was accusing you of hating FOSS, why do you feel you need to defend yourself? Saying anything even remotely in favor of paid closed-source software or hardware is considered "unholy" by a certain segment of the tech community. Online, they can be quite vocal and even aggressive. They generally lack what I call "real world sense of proportion and common sense" and behave as FOSS absolutists. At the extremes, it is a cult or a mob or a group of seriously misguided individuals who lack context. I love FOSS and support it as much as possible. I hope to be able to have the time to contribute to some of it (KiCAD, I have you at the top of the list!) when I retire. However, very frequently in business you have to make decisions based on what gets the job done so you can focus on what you were there to do in the first place. I have tons of examples of this. We have been licensing Solidworks almost since it came out. This amounts to tens of thousands of dollars per seat. Our SW Flow and Thermal simulation license probably cost tens of thousands of dollars per seat as well. And the same is the case for our SW CAM tools. I'd have to do the math, yet I would not be surprised to learn that the full suite of SW tools and SW cost us in the order of $75K to $100K to license and maintain over the years. And that was, and continues to be, the right decision. It's the right tool for the job. We get to focus on our core business of developing technology. We have immediate support and points of contact whenever we need something, anything. The software is good and always getting better. And it is a standard (much like Quickbooks is a standard). We actually pay for a Fusion360 license, yet, we've had difficulties using it in some cases because some of the work we do falls under ITAR regulations and the whole cloud thing can be a serious non-starter for that world. In other words, while it is cheaper, it's a non-starter because it would introduce more problems than we would ever care to deal with. Another example is paying for the Jetbrains tool suite. Excellent software. It works. We get to focus on other things that matter. Yeah, we also use VSCode where it makes sense. We pay for lots of other tools when it makes sense. Photoshop and the Adobe suite is another example of something that is still a standard. In business, any second spent focusing on anything other than your core revenue-generating mission is a second wasted. While FOSS can be great when it works well, anyone with any experience has stories of problems that can burn time at a massive rate. There's a place for everything. > There is no such thing as moral high ground? Some feel that being a FOSS absolutist is a moral high ground. There is no such thing as a moral high ground purely based on whether software is free and/or open source or paid and/or closed source. To state it in the simplest possible terms: You pick-up and use a screwdriver because it gets the job done. It matters not if that screwdriver was given to you for free along with full design files on how to make your own or you bought it at the store. What matters is that it let you tighten the screw and you move on.
dndn1 3y ago
If it integrates so freely it should be a non-event when you, your CPA, and individual clients exercise autonomy over accounting software choices. I don't think the FOSS vision in this space is to compel one new option on everyone that isn't an option. I can only imagine it's quite the opposite.
- robomartin 3y ago
  Sorry. That's not the way real business works.
acyou 3y ago
There is a tendency towards a knee-jerk response by people who have little broader industry experience, saying "I have to pay for that? It's so easy. Why can't it be open source and free?" Well, because this and this and this and also that little detail which turns out to be a massive deal. The Chinese have an old saying, you get what you pay for. Yes, why can't we have open core + accounting as a service, pay 2x, and have the rug pulled out at any time? Possibly the largest deterrent is the recent tendency of financial VC backed startups to play extremely fast and loose with house (investor) money...
realusername 3y ago
> Many layers of the financial system for small and medium businesses are used to working with QB This is more US-based, I'm working for a QB competitor in France and let me tell you that they are going to be crushed at very high speed either by us or another similar modern competitor. They are going to lose the whole market within 5 years and TV ads won't help them. They are moving way too slowly for the market.
- molsongolden 3y ago
  I’m not familiar with the French market but Intuit is still on track to keep crushing it in the USA. Intuit spent $2.35B USD on R&D last year (across all products) and QBO revenue grew 33%. Many startups in the space are building features, not products, and are at risk of QBO adding their feature the same way Stripe has been killing off fintechs with every new feature rollout. There are many “let’s fix accounting” startups but the market itself moves slowly. It’s difficult to nudge users to switch accounting software and QBO has deeply entrenched network effects with accountants and integrations. Another huge issue for QBO competitors is that there’s only so much you can do with the general ledger (GL) and closely associated functionality. The GL system is an end user of multiple different transaction sources/pipelines while most of the time those pipelines are outside of the GL software’s control. There isn’t enough there to strongly differentiate and pull users off QBO unless (maybe) you build a mega platform that handles all parts of the transaction lifecycles (something like what Brex is doing), and then you need to convince users to be all-in on all of the components to get the benefits.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

themerone 3y ago

I know a small business running bespoke accounting software with a lineage predating the PC era. They have some very specialized, industry specific, reporting and invoicing needs that can't be met with a general purpose purpose software. An application provides a great way to modernize their software without a full rewrite.

robomartin 3y ago
Of course, there are lots of businesses who fit this description. This is nothing new. That does not mean that millions don't benefit from and are happy using Quickbooks. Before the mob interprets what I am saying through their reality distortion field, I should note I am NOT hating on FOSS and defending closed-source software as general categories. There is such a thing as useful industry-standard software on both sides of that divide. And it is perfectly OK to point this out. This doesn't have to be a war. This shouldn't be twisted into hatred or attacks on FOSS or even non-FOSS software. Nobody has the moral high ground. There is no such thing. These are tools. Some are free and open, some are not. And that's perfectly OK. Sometimes a little critical thinking and reason is a good thing.
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  Why are you so aggressive in your tone? > This is nothing new. That does not mean that millions don't benefit Nobody claimed this is new or that not millions benefit or are happy with QB (source needed though). > Before the mob interprets what I am saying through their reality distortion field Which mob? Reality distortion? Nobody was accusing you of hating FOSS, why do you feel you need to defend yourself? > This doesn't have to be a war. To me there was no indication it is a war. Why do you feel it is? > Nobody has the moral high ground. There is no such thing. Bold claim. There is no such thing as moral high ground?
  - wrycoder 3y ago
    Actually, I appreciate the definite opinions and colorful language. And, the POV expressed is realistic, IMO.
  - robomartin 3y ago
    > Why are you so aggressive in your tone? You are reading something into my comments that isn't there. Don't take it personally, none of it is aimed at the person I was replying to anyway. > source needed though Ah, the HN response when... Evident to anyone who actually knows anything about how businesses work. Still, here, go to page 5: https://www.codat.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Codat_Guide-to-Accounting-Software-Market_July-2020.pdf https://www.codat.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Codat_Guide-... This is for 2020. Numbers for 2023 are likely larger. Quickbooks offerings have a 75% dominance of the market. And, for a good reason. This is the standard I was talking about. Again, nobody gives a shit about FOSS, only us nerds. In other words, those of us who likely live two or more standard deviations from the mean. Go ask your local dentist if she gives a shit about FOSS. Everywhere else under the curve, people want to focus on their core business and get on with the job of making money, supporting their families, innovating and growing their business. Their accountant/CPA says "Use Quickbooks. It will make the process simpler". That's what they do. The cost is a rounding error for any non-trivial business. FOSS does not matter. What matters is solving a non-revenue-generating problem in a way that does not consume clock cycles and moving on to more important things. > Which mob? Reality distortion? Nobody was accusing you of hating FOSS, why do you feel you need to defend yourself? Saying anything even remotely in favor of paid closed-source software or hardware is considered "unholy" by a certain segment of the tech community. Online, they can be quite vocal and even aggressive. They generally lack what I call "real world sense of proportion and common sense" and behave as FOSS absolutists. At the extremes, it is a cult or a mob or a group of seriously misguided individuals who lack context. I love FOSS and support it as much as possible. I hope to be able to have the time to contribute to some of it (KiCAD, I have you at the top of the list!) when I retire. However, very frequently in business you have to make decisions based on what gets the job done so you can focus on what you were there to do in the first place. I have tons of examples of this. We have been licensing Solidworks almost since it came out. This amounts to tens of thousands of dollars per seat. Our SW Flow and Thermal simulation license probably cost tens of thousands of dollars per seat as well. And the same is the case for our SW CAM tools. I'd have to do the math, yet I would not be surprised to learn that the full suite of SW tools and SW cost us in the order of $75K to $100K to license and maintain over the years. And that was, and continues to be, the right decision. It's the right tool for the job. We get to focus on our core business of developing technology. We have immediate support and points of contact whenever we need something, anything. The software is good and always getting better. And it is a standard (much like Quickbooks is a standard). We actually pay for a Fusion360 license, yet, we've had difficulties using it in some cases because some of the work we do falls under ITAR regulations and the whole cloud thing can be a serious non-starter for that world. In other words, while it is cheaper, it's a non-starter because it would introduce more problems than we would ever care to deal with. Another example is paying for the Jetbrains tool suite. Excellent software. It works. We get to focus on other things that matter. Yeah, we also use VSCode where it makes sense. We pay for lots of other tools when it makes sense. Photoshop and the Adobe suite is another example of something that is still a standard. In business, any second spent focusing on anything other than your core revenue-generating mission is a second wasted. While FOSS can be great when it works well, anyone with any experience has stories of problems that can burn time at a massive rate. There's a place for everything. > There is no such thing as moral high ground? Some feel that being a FOSS absolutist is a moral high ground. There is no such thing as a moral high ground purely based on whether software is free and/or open source or paid and/or closed source. To state it in the simplest possible terms: You pick-up and use a screwdriver because it gets the job done. It matters not if that screwdriver was given to you for free along with full design files on how to make your own or you bought it at the store. What matters is that it let you tighten the screw and you move on.

dndn1 3y ago

If it integrates so freely it should be a non-event when you, your CPA, and individual clients exercise autonomy over accounting software choices. I don't think the FOSS vision in this space is to compel one new option on everyone that isn't an option. I can only imagine it's quite the opposite.

robomartin 3y ago
Sorry. That's not the way real business works.

acyou 3y ago

There is a tendency towards a knee-jerk response by people who have little broader industry experience, saying "I have to pay for that? It's so easy. Why can't it be open source and free?" Well, because this and this and this and also that little detail which turns out to be a massive deal. The Chinese have an old saying, you get what you pay for. Yes, why can't we have open core + accounting as a service, pay 2x, and have the rug pulled out at any time? Possibly the largest deterrent is the recent tendency of financial VC backed startups to play extremely fast and loose with house (investor) money...

realusername 3y ago

> Many layers of the financial system for small and medium businesses are used to working with QB This is more US-based, I'm working for a QB competitor in France and let me tell you that they are going to be crushed at very high speed either by us or another similar modern competitor. They are going to lose the whole market within 5 years and TV ads won't help them. They are moving way too slowly for the market.

molsongolden 3y ago
I’m not familiar with the French market but Intuit is still on track to keep crushing it in the USA. Intuit spent $2.35B USD on R&D last year (across all products) and QBO revenue grew 33%. Many startups in the space are building features, not products, and are at risk of QBO adding their feature the same way Stripe has been killing off fintechs with every new feature rollout. There are many “let’s fix accounting” startups but the market itself moves slowly. It’s difficult to nudge users to switch accounting software and QBO has deeply entrenched network effects with accountants and integrations. Another huge issue for QBO competitors is that there’s only so much you can do with the general ledger (GL) and closely associated functionality. The GL system is an end user of multiple different transaction sources/pipelines while most of the time those pipelines are outside of the GL software’s control. There isn’t enough there to strongly differentiate and pull users off QBO unless (maybe) you build a mega platform that handles all parts of the transaction lifecycles (something like what Brex is doing), and then you need to convince users to be all-in on all of the components to get the benefits.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]