Good business accounting is about more than simple debits, credits, and department-level functionality for General Ledger, Account Receivable and Accounts Payable. There are dozens of excellent open source accounting software options for everything from simple basic ledger bookkeeping to invoicing, inventory tracking, point of sale, payroll, taxes, and reporting and forecasting, and this roundup highlights five of the best.
Here are Top Five open source applications that might be able to use for the financial software you currently use for your home or business.
- 1) Front Accounting
- 2) Turbo Cash
- 3) Gnu Cash
- 4) Post Books
- 5) Compiere
- 6) SQL Ledger
1) Front Accounting :
- Front Accounting (FA) is a professional web-based Accounting system for the entire ERP chain written in PHP, using MySQL.
- Front Accounting is multi user, multilingual and multi currency. Front Accounting is provided with standard modules: Sales, Purchases, Items and Inventory, Manufacturing, Dimensions, Banking and General Ledger, and Setup.
- Front Accounting is designed to be easily translated to other languages. Currently there are available 83 translations.
Features:
- Historical Currency Rates.
- Multi-Currency Bank Accounts, Customers And Suppliers.
- GST/VAT can be selected on Customer, Supplier and Item basis, Advanced GST/VAT report for details and outputs/inputs.
- Every document can be emailed and printed simultaneously. PDF can be formatted for every document.
- Multi language support with right to left support in Arabic language.
- Different chart of accounts can be installed and activated.
- Export the reports in MS Excel/Open Office Calc format.
- Make graphical analysis (Horizontal/Vertical Bars, Dot Lines, Pies and Donuts).
- Feasibility of adding advanced production and simple assembling features.
2) Turbo Cash:
- Turbo Cash is an entry level inventory control software which is designed to be used by single users. Specifically designed to replace QuickBooks and Sage. It is also compatible with other operating systems like Linux in Wine and Delphi developments in Windows.
- TurboCash claims to be open source and yet none of the recent source code is published anywhere. The current TurboCash release is version 5 dated December 2014.
- It is aimed at the small to medium-sized business market, this places it between being a home finances package and being an ERP package.
Features:
- Historical Currency Rates.
- Multi-Currency Bank Accounts, Customers And Suppliers.
- GST/VAT can be selected on Customer, Supplier and Item basis, Advanced GST/VAT report for details and outputs/inputs.
- Every document can be emailed and printed simultaneously. PDF can be formatted for every document.
- Multi language support with right to left support in Arabic language.
- Different chart of accounts can be installed and activated.
- Export the reports in MS Excel/Open Office Calc format.
- Make graphical analysis (Horizontal/Vertical Bars, Dot Lines, Pies and Donuts).
- Feasibility of adding advanced production and simple assembling features.
3) Gnu Cash:
- GnuCash offers a complete personal finance manager, as well as basic business accounting features best suited for very small businesses, and this is important because double-entry ensures that you can detect errors and track down their source.
- GnuCash is extremely flexible; the more you learn about it the more you can tailor it to suit your own needs. This software is freely licensed under GNU. It’s also compatible with other operating systems like Linux, Solaris, BSD, Microsoft Windows as well as Mac OS X. The architecture of this software is based in professional principles of accounting.
- Latest versi0n of Gnu Cash is 2.6.7.
Features:
- Main Feature includes Double Entry, Scheduled transactions, Income/Expense account type.
- Simplify managing a small business with Customer and Vendor tracking, Jobs, Invoicing and Bill Payment, and Tax and Billing Terms.
- Different accounts can be denominated in different currencies. GnuCash by default stores data in an xml format. Starting with version 2.4, GnuCash financial data can be stored in a SQL database using SQLite3, MySQL or PostgreSQL.
- It supports QIF and QFX Import which means it’s first free software application to support the OFX (Open Financial Exchange) protocol that many banks and financial services are starting to use. GnuCash supports multiple languages. It is free of cost.
4) Post Books :
- PostBooks is an pen source accounting and enterprise resource planning business system geared toward small to medium sized businesses. This is a free software which was released under the CPAL license.
- PostBooks is maintained as an open source project on GitHub but is based on the commercially licensed xTuple ERP system created by xTuple. XTuple PostBooks is the core of the excellent XTuple ERP suite.
- PostBooks is free, and includes high-end features like multi-user and multi-location, trouble tickets, a task manager, quotes, shipping/receiving, bill of materials, and assemble-to-order configurator.
- Post Books software is divided into modules like Sales, Accounting, CRM, Manufacturing, Products, Inventory and Purchase.
Features:
- PostBooks supports multi- currency and multi- lingual capability.
- PostBooks accounting software was initially written in English language but now it has become multi-lingual including Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Portuguese as well as French among others.
- PostBooks is divided into 7 functional modules: Accounting, Sales, CRM, Manufacture, Purchase, Inventory and Products.
- The PostBooks project includes three application interface options: a locally installed Graphical User Interface (GUI) client, a mobile enabled web client, and a REST based web services API for integration with third party applications, all of which feed into the same PostgreSQL back end database.
5) Compiere:
- Compiere is an open source ERP, CRM and leading Cloud-based business solution for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) in distribution, retail, service and manufacturing.
- Compiere includes comprehensive accounting features, plus ERP and CRM.
- Compiere’s customers include organizations in distribution, retail, manufacturing, publishing, healthcare, pharmaceutical, government, non-governmental groups, and charities in more than 40 countries.
- Compiere is changing the way businesses and other organizations access and use enterprise software capabilities.
Features:
- The enterprise edition adds multi-server support, excellent management dashboards, PDF report writer, business intelligence and a Visual Dictionary Editor. This is a unique feature for customizing Compiere without programming, using a graphical drag-and-drop module editor.
- Compiere encompasses ERP functionality, but in order to avoid the duplication of information and the need for synchronization, it’s organized in a different way.
- Easy to acquire because they require no up-front investment.
- Easy to adapt and customize because of a revolutionary model-based application platform that speeds and simplifies development and customization.
- It provide Database independence with version 2.5.2. Because of “Database Kit” for porting Compiere to multiple databases.
6) SQL Ledger:
- SQL Ledger is a Web-based ERP system for shops that need work and purchase orders, packing lists, multi-user and multi-location, vouchers. It is written in PERL language.
- Accounting data is stored in an SQL Database Server and a standard web browser can be used as its user interface.
- There are two versions: free of cost and enterprise. An enterprise subscription buys additional features like barcode and label printing, invoice consolidation, a good payroll module, an integrated editable Help system, and premium email and phone support.
Features:
- Unlimited number of accounts is there.
- Backup data to a file or send to an email account for off-line storage.
- Data is stored in ASCII format.
- Backups can also be imported into a spreadsheet for further processing.
- It is Double Entry accounting system.
- It is simple to understand because it has only.
- Not only is the user interface multi-lingual, but it also offers the ability to print out statements, invoices, and the like in the language of the customer, even if the user does not know the language in which the content is being printed.