Help with accounting and payroll software

[aescott]

Hi

I am Treasurer of a charity and have been using a Windows package for the accounts and payroll. These two functions, along with iTunes, are the only things I use Windows for.

The payroll package is fine, but the accounts package is not, in my opinion, up to the job. I have been struggling with it over the last few weeks as I try to complete the year end. I've now done that but would like to consider my options going forward.

What I need is:

• Double-entry posting
• journal entries
• Trial Balance - full and summary
• Basic reports
• Ability to export data to a spreadsheet

If this could also encompass payroll, that would save me booting up my virtual XP machine, but that's not essential.

Has anyone used something along these lines in openSUSE?

Thanks

[hnimmo]

Hi

What I need is:

• Double-entry posting
• journal entries
• Trial Balance - full and summary
• Basic reports
• Ability to export data to a spreadsheet

I think you'll find that gnucash has all these features and more.

[Will Honea]

aescott wrote:

>
> Hi
>
> I am Treasurer of a charity and have been using a Windows package for
> the accounts and payroll. These two functions, along with iTunes, are
> the only things I use Windows for.
>
> The payroll package is fine, but the accounts package is not, in my
> opinion, up to the job. I have been struggling with it over the last few
> weeks as I try to complete the year end. I've now done that but would
> like to consider my options going forward.
>
> What I need is:
>
>
> - Double-entry posting
> - journal entries
> - Trial Balance - full and summary
> - Basic reports
> - Ability to export data to a spreadsheet
>
>
> If this could also encompass payroll, that would save me booting up my
> virtual XP machine, but that's not essential.
>
> Has anyone used something along these lines in openSUSE?

I got sucked into a similar role at my church - I feel your pain. I've been
looking for a complete package that incorporates AP, AR, payroll,
contributions, and asset management for a long time. For a non-profit,
membership integration and contribution tracking/reporting are a must here.
While I'm still not totally happy with it, the closest I've found is still a
Win app we run with Wine called PowerChurch in its latest versions. It uses
FoxPro for a backend but most of my FoxPro tools also run with Wine and I'm
able to export most of the data to either a spread sheet (OO Calc imports
the data tables directy if desired - just don't try to write them back) or
to DB2 for analysis. The only drawback is the use of FoxPro memo fields in
the database but those are not necessary for the accounting operations.

It's not free but it is an integrated accounting app that also supports
facility/asset management, mail lists, scheduling, and such from a Linux
desktop quite well for an organization with a few thousand members (active
and inactive) which has been easy for the office staff to use. I have
doubts about how it would scale for a really large operation but they
finally appear to have hired a competent DBA to redesign the database schema
in current versions so I have no major issues from a technical standpoint
any more.

I keep looking but I haven't found an acceptable replacement - yet.

--
Will Honea

[john_hudson]

Agree with the suggestion of GnuCash which also has payroll. Just advised a charity to adopt it after looking at all the other FOSS options and the Treasurer is delighted with it after suffering an appalling commercial alternative. If your current package can export in QIF you can transfer most things directly.

[aescott]

Thanks - I'll give GnuCash a go. It's early enough in the year that I can re-process transactions if need be....

Thanks again for the help!

[allengodwinbis]

Hi. Thanks for sharing this information.I am Treasurer of a charity and have been using a Windows package for
the accounts and payroll.
__________
Allen
Software Payroll