Agony Accounting

Okay, so this is way off topic for the stated mission of this blog (except that it’ mine and I can write about whatever the hell I damned well please! ) but. . .

If you’re a linux user (and I am), finding a decent accounting program is enough to make you throw up your hands in despair! Oh, it’s not that there aren’t a lot of choices for the small business person (which I also am), it’s just that none of them quite “fit” for various and extremely frustrating reasons.

Let me begin by explaining that for nearly seven years I had used a proprietary accounting program written by my grad-school brother. It was a DOS program, however, and a program that, after completing his Ph.d he discovered he didn’t have the time to update and convert to universal code the way he wanted to. Besides, other programs were emerging, and they were produced by majors in the computer sciences. So that left me kind of hanging out there on my own. At the time (this was a few years ago), save for a few check book programs, there were no programs that I could find that would run under linux. GnuCash was the oldest, and it was double entry (required for businesses, which run under the accrual system), but it still seemed pointed entirely toward individuals and their retirement accounts.

Frustrated, I started using OOcalc to keep records that would satisfy the IRS, but little else.

Unfortunately, the burden of trying to keep up when everything is done manually was (is) exhausting when you also work all day. And, there are many jobs that require “standard bookkeeping practices” capable of external audit. And while OOcalc is a beautiful piece of work, but it just can’t replace a real accounting program when it comes to audit requirements.

So, the hunt was on. It’s not done yet, but I have to say that, after 3 weeks I’m frustrated. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

GnuCash: Of all the program’s I’ve looked at, this is my favorite. Not in the functionality department (which in many ways sucks weenies if you’re trying to manage a business), but ease of use. Give me 15 minutes and I can do not just one day’s bookkeeping, but 2 or 3. It has a beautiful user interface (if you understand basic accounting) that “remembers” your entries in various journals. So in one or two key strokes you can re-enter similar transactions. Also nice is the semi- automated on-line banking feature. By various means you can download your bank’s transactions and GnuCash will do its best to figure out how they match to your existing entries. Once you’ve helped it out and made sure everything is the way you want it, clicking “okay” automatically “clears” the matching transactions. A great time saver in keeping track of how much money is going into and out of that busy business checking account.

And of course, GnuCash has a lot of features for investors. The investment community was where it originated, so that’s where a lot of its strengths lay. In what other GPL program would you be able to find the ability to automatically calculate a stock split?

Less impressive is the newly added “business” module. The module is very simplistic. Though it has a “job” function, so that you can track expenditures and charges based on a specific “job” (or project, as other programs call it), the “job” function is not tied into the GL. So anything actually paid for in cash in regards to a “job” is immediately lost. Almost equally annoying is the fact that every transaction requires you to start over. Select vendor or customer, find the vendor or customer (which requires entering a search string), and then you can finally get down to doing whatever you wanted — for that transaction only. For the next transaction you get to start all over again at the pull down menu.

GnuCash also lacks basic “virtual accounting” functionality. Meaning a program that automatically adjusts for (at a minimum), deferred and accrued income and expenses within a given time period. GnuCash does not do this. In fact, GnuCash it has no way to “close” its books at all, either literally or dynamically! And that in and of itself is its death knell for business users.

But perhaps the most frustrating aspect of GnuCash is the attitude of the development team. They treat their user base as an annoyance, rather than a necessity. GnuCash seems to be more of a play thing to them than a project on which other people’s livelihoods might depend.

I’m afraid that until or unless GnuCash is taken over by a serious team or company (like Open Office or the Gimp), it’s never going to be more than a toy with which wealthy investors can play with their money.

TurboCash: When I found out about this piece of software I got exited. Here, I thought, was GnuCash for the entrepreneur. And so it is. It adheres to the GPL school of thought (though it’s not GNU software), it’s overseen by an international team with help from hundreds of others, and seems to be responsive to the businesses around the globe that are dependent upon it for their business bookkeeping needs.

And then the bug landed in the ointment: The developers chose a Borland (read: Micro$oft lacky company) programming language. TurboCash is a Windoze only program. I mean, to the point that it won’t even run under CrossOver Office! And of course, since the original coding was done in a Borland language, switching to a GNU/GPL form of that language is going to be a lot of work. (Though there’s apparently enough demand that the team is trying.)

So if you’re a Windoze user, take a good look. If you’re a linux user, hit the NEXT button.

Compiere: When I found Compiere I thought I was in love. On the one hand, the program is entirely too powerful for my needs. On the other, it provides functionality that no other accounting program I had (or have) found provides, all in one place, all integrated, and all available “on line”.

But Compiere is not just an accounting program. It’s billed as an “ERP/CRM” program. ERP stands for “Enterprise Resource Planning.” CRM stands for “Customer Relationship Management.” So Compiere’s involvement with a customer and their project begins at the first phone call and lasts. . . Well, forever technically. But at least through the full life cycle of the project, tying the project cycle to the invoicing, the inventory, the payroll, the returns, the payments by the customer, and so on and so forth.

Compiere assumes a multinational business, which is why I said it’s in some ways way too big for lil’ol’ me. But man what a piece of work!

Then the bad news set in: After figuring out the interface, I thought using the program would be easy. But it’s apparently not! I can’t even enter a store receipt to adjust inventory without getting an “invalid” error. Manual changes to inventory don’t “take”. Payments by customers for services rendered on work orders or invoices don’t seem to be being processed. Obviously I’m missing something!

As it turns out, Compiere isn’t really GPL software, as it’s billed (though you can get the source code for at least one product). It’s really cripple ware: Here’s a massive and complex piece of software that you’re able to download and install on your computer (and it will run on almost everything, Windoze, Linux, MacOS), but. . . If you want a user manual or any other kind of operational information beyond installation instructions (which they gladly help you with) well, that’ll cost you $50.

And don’t even bother to ask for help in evaluating the software. I wanted to be able to put the generic “company” they provide you with in their “GPL” version through its paces to see how well it would fit my day to day routine. What did I get back?

• We’ll gladly sell you the manual for $50.
• We offer lots of online flash seminars — for $50-$300 each!
• We offer lots of instructional seminars. We’d be happy to enroll you — for $800-$1,200 each, or more.

Well, I might just spend money on some of that if I could determine whether or not the program was going to fit my needs. I mean, even Quicken provides enough information for users to determine how well, and which product, will fit the user’s needs without trying to pick their pocket!

But don’t ask that of Compiere. They’ll rip the fabric tearing that wallet out of your pocket!

ADempiere: At one time there was only Compiere. But for many of the reasons I stated above, some of the Compiere developers got disgusted and set out on their own. They named their Compiere fork Adempiere.

Adempiere is now developed in much the same way GnuCash is: By a team of volunteers around the world. Given some of the high-powered names I saw associated with it, it is apparently quite stable and functional. Unfortunately, like a lot of GNU software, everything, including the documentation, is incomplete, fragmented, and disorganized. They have some great ideas, but how they’re going to play out remains a huge question mark — one I don’t advise betting one’s business on.

Also, and somewhat ironically, ADempiere is dependent upon on postgreSQL and has no support for the GPL version of the SQL databases provided by either mySQL or OpenDB.

Tiny ERP: This was another program that looked deliciously good on the surface. For one thing, it’s a linux native program built on the GTK+ tool kit. For another, rather than requiring one of the massive (and clunky) SQL databases of one sort or another, they chose the much smaller and more versatile XML format for their database. Finally, like Compiere and ADempiere, Tiny ERP allows remote access via the web.

If you live in the EU, let me advise you to give Tiny ERP a serious look. If you’re anywhere else and have no time for development work, forget it! They don’t even support OFX imports from your bank.

OpenBravo: This application has a top notch website and sounds really, really good, until you dig deeper. Like Compiere they offer the software free. Also like Compiere, ADempiere and Tiny ERP, it’s web based. But. . .

If you want to know how to use it, pay! Also, although they bill themselves as an ERP/CRM application, they’re really, really light on the CRM part of the equation. You could probably do as well or better with a paper dayrunner type application. Also, they don’t seem to offer any kind of online banking support.

SQLLedger: This application looked like a promising replacement for GnuCash. Not as full featured and sweeping as Compiere would have been — it’s not an ERP/CRM — but it does allow remote access through a secure http connection. Unfortunately, like ADempiere, it’s postgreSQL based and offers no support for the GPL version offered by OpenDB. Also, in a simple query about OpenDB support the developer wasted no time in informing me s/he “doesn’t code for free.” So despite the adverts on the website, don’t expect support unless you plan on tapping the bank account.

LedgerSMB: Like ADempiere, LedgerSMB is an open source, community based version of SQLLedger. And like ADempiere, while it offers features that its parent doesn’t, it’s so disorganized that the documentation is nothing more than a useless skeletal outline. Don’t look for a clue as to where the project is headed.

So, the search goes on. Right now I’m so frustrated I’m ready to give in to corporate greed and plunk down the money for a copy of QuickBooks. (QuickBooks is a CrossOver Office supported application. It would certainly make my accountant happy if I did so.)

Of course, I could also plunk down that $50 for a user manual to Compiere so that I could fully evaluate the software — but therein lies the rub. If I want to know about QuickBooks, all I have to do is talk to my accountant, or take a look at their long and very public track record. I could talk to dozens of local business owners about how QuickBooks has worked for them. I can’t do the same for Compiere or any of the other above mentioned products. And while $50 isn’t much, I’ve got a half a dozen sales people every week that want to take “only” $20 or $30 or $50 out of my company for some “good reason” or another that’s going to “improve” my business one way or another. So as much as I like the idea of Compiere, dropping $50 on a bet is something I’m very reluctant to do.

So what’s next in the Agony of Accounting?

Fuck if I know!

I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out.

Technorati Tags: accounting, ERP, CRM, Compiere, ADempiere, Tiny ERP, TurboCash, OpenBravo, SQLledger, LedgerSMB, linux, open source, GPL, GNU

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The Joys of the Wild West

I don’t know that I’ve ever stated it outright here in the blog, but I live in the great Pacific Northwest. That is, in that wild country north of San Francisco California and south of Portland Oregon that covers more than 10,000 square miles of mostly alpine wilderness.

Needless to say, up here wood heat is ubiquitous. And yes, I’m one of those that heats my home with wood heat — and only wood heat! But up until this heating season, I had used a rather advanced fuel called “Prest logs”, made by Home Fire Ltd. (I was going to include a link, but it seems there URL is up for sale, so . . . ) Not that I’m against “real” fire wood, i was just being lazy, and felt that burning wood waste was as least as green as burning trees that Mother Nature had knocked down.

(For those of you who think that wood heat creates green house gases, let me recommend this excellent and rather provocative article:  Is Wood Heat Green?.)

Unfortunately, the company from which we had been buying our Prest Logs has decided to go out of business. So they’re not really paying as close attention to demand as they have in the past. At the same time, the Chinese, who own our local paper plant, have decided that they want to buy all pulpable wood — including the “waste” hardwoods that we locals have for generations burned for heat. So the price of cord wood has gone from $285 per cord to over $400 per cord for seasoned hardwood.

The math made solutions relatively obvious. The cost of going into the woods and collecting our own firewood (on national Forest Service land), including the homage to the image of Uncle Sam required to gain access to land we (the American People) already own, gas for collection and splitting using a gas splitter that I opted to buy (I’m not that young anymore), the price of a cord of wood came out to $75. A butt load less than $400+ to buy the wood already collected and split. And I’ve always enjoyed the great out-doors. So this season we started collecting our own wood.

Today, however, the bears got us. We only managed to cut a quarter of a cord before the chain break on the chain saw gave out. It wouldn’t have been so bad had it broken in the unlocked position. But noooo. . .  It had to break in the locked position, making it impossible to cut more wood today. We came home with less than a quarter of a cord. This time of year we’ll burn through that in just over a week.

The joys of the Wild, Wild, West!

Technorati Tags: fuel wood, wood heat, Pacific North West

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The Skill of Self Sabotage

This has come up twice just since Christmas, so I guess I’m going to have to blog about it. The latest version:

My youngest son, now 19, is looking for a job — or so he says. In the last two weeks he’s been told of two places that had entry level openings. The last was just the other day, a job paying much more than the minimum wage, and one with a future. The kid went off, blasting his mother with anger laden reason after reason as to why he just couldn’t  take that job..

Just so you know, this isn’t really news. Yeah, the kid has an anger issue, and it’s made much worse when he’s got nothing to do but smoke pot (Humboldt County’s favorite pass time). But more importantly, he has a success problem. He’s learned Humboldt County’s most common skill: Self sabotoge.

At its most basic, the first airt (sometimes called Freyja’s aett) of the runes is a list of skills or talents that must be mastered before beginning the journey of the Odian. More practically, they’re simply good life skills.

It should be no surprise that the first shot fired across the student’s bow, the first discipline that must be mastered is the energy of fehu, a rune whose meaning is usually reduced to discussions of money and wealth.

Certainly money (affluence, if you will) is an integral part of the meaning of fehu, but it’s not all of it. The total picture of fehu is much bigger: It’s about understanding and managing our personal power. “Know thy self” is the first commandment of virtually all traditions who have a mystical path. And so it is also the first revelation given to Ódhinn through the runes. Lacking a true understanding of our personal power, we cannot hope to comprehend, and make use of, the the ørlög. Without an understanding of our personal power, we cannot hope to master the skills represented in the second rune, uruz.

For the purpose of the second rune is to apply the knowledge gained in the first.

Understanding our own personal power, we are then able to harness the raw intemperate energies of the universe and use it to burn away the irrelevancies, thereby seeing the often unpleasant truth of our selves and our world: That we do not “create our own reality”, we only create our experience of it. That it is in the mundane fundamentals of life that the true spiritual work is done, not in the airy-fairy vocabulary ridden depths of pseudo-spiritual religious verbiage. That we  inevitably draw to ourselves precisely those things we have focused our energy and attention on, whether we like it or not, whether we understand it or not, whether we claim we wanted it, or not. And perhaps the deepest mystery of uruz: That this last truth in no way conflicts with the first. That we do not create our reality.

For one of the greatest mysteries of the ørlög revealed by the knowledge of two runes together is not only the magnificence of our power as individuals, but also our limitations. That our creative ability is made up of nothing more unspiritual and  mundane than whatever we focus on and work on and strive for — just as all those self help books have been saying for decades. And the best indicator of what we’re really focused on and working on and striving is determined by our thoughts, our words, and our deeds. The lessons of fehu and uruz applied.

To get back to my nineteen year old son: He claims he wants a job, but only puts in applications in a very small geographic area, spends little time doing it, and by in large he puts in applications to places where they’re noticeably not hiring. The rest of his time, about 90%, is spent “hanging out” and more often than not, getting high. Does he really want a job?

And yet, he’s not alone. How many workers complain they get passed over for promotion, all the while acting out in ways that make promotion impossible? How many dieters find excuses to quit their diets when they start to lose weight? How many students drop out of school just before getting that coveted degree? How many business owners change direction on the cusp of success, alienating their customer base? How many people claim they’re going to <fill in the blank> but never do anything to make it happen?

Saying we want one thing, then doing something else that sabotages what we say we want. Classic signs of fehu and uruz being reversed; of a complete lack of understanding of personal power and the application of will.

But we still always reap exactly what we’ve sowed.

Technorati Tags: runes, fehu, uruz, self sabotage

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