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Finding free accounting software that works

Investing your time in an accounting package could be wasted if you find it doesn't suit your needs...
We have decided to put some free/open-source software through tests.

We will test for...

• Stability
• Features
• Standard-ness
• Ease of use

At the moment, a lot of the smaller free programs were found to be too limited or not stable, and we are left with two current possibles to put through thorough testing:

TurboCash and GnuCash.

 We are still in the early stages, but so far TurboCash seems to be the most thorough one.  Yet it is in the stages of a major change to its underlying database (version 3 to version 4) so some of the problems that may occur in version 4 could already be in the pipeline to be fixed.  One problem stood out - entering cash received against a sales invoice caused an error.  The result was that the cash was not booked into the cash account, but the invoice shows as having been paid!  Hopefully the authors will fix this at some point because otherwise it makes the software unusable.

GnuCash is more stable, yet has a few quirks.  Some of the reports can be customised and some not.  One particularly inconvenient one was a Customer Statement - while other reports can have their printed title changed, the statement cannot, yet it says "Customer Report" which is not appropriate.  Another major shortfall is that GnuCash does not have any facility for inventory - i.e. you can use it for a company that sells "services" but not a stock of products.  Yet it is quite versatile and we are looking into possible work-arounds for this problem.  We will keep you posted.  On the positive side, GnuCash is ideal for clients who don't want to have to think in terms of "debit and credit".  Such terms are mostly hidden from you and replaced with words you can understand such as "received and paid".

There is much more testing to do.  And its also possible we may find more software too.  We'll publish further findings as we go along.

If you want to try out TurboCash or GnuCash you will find their sites from our "LINKS" section under "Finance and Accounting"