Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[jparkdo]

Geoff,

I too have been looking for some time for a suitable open source replacement for Quicken. I do have one that looks pretty good from a couple of years ago called NFP Accounting by John H. Harris. His website project page is called http://www.unencumbereddesign.com/proj.htm , but he took the link to NFP accounting down (why?). He released it as a Windows executable, but it's just a Tcl startkit. It's programmed in Tcl/Tk and uses SQlite as the database. He designed it to do double ledger accounting well, and he details how you can use a dummy account to check it for accuracy. He also made a pretty nice PDF documentary guide for it, which I also have. It works well with the Puppy Linux Wine 0.9.29 package for me. It's just that I'm not as far as into double ledger accounting as you to really test it. Anyway, if you are interested I could upload the documentation and the executable to you somewhere. I'm kind of curious to see what you think of it. The only thing I got to crash on it was the import feature, but it has the usual transaction reports, P&L report, and so on an does export various parts of the database in TAB and TDB formats. It also prints to a Windows printer. Even though the import feature crashes, there are various QIF to CSV import programs available, and one could use a straight up SQlite database browser tool such as TkSQlite (which works really well in my experience) to import data into the database.

Jerry

[GeoffS]

Jerry
Thanks for the info.
I've persevered with Grisbi but have given up. It's reporting system while having far too many options, provided far too few reports I would hate to try to prepare an Australian tax return from it which is all I really do this for.
For now, and probably for the future, I'm using QuickBooks under Wine. Not perfect for private bookkeeping but actually works quite well and I'm familiar with it, I've been using it for years and still use it for commercial use.
I do trust Wine - it even runs the Australian Tax Office electronic tax preparation system.
With QuickBooks I've worked on the same data files with Windows and Linux/Wine and never had a problem.
Thanks for the offer but at the moment I don't want to test another program, particularly one that appears to be no longer supported. Maybe the owner found that support of something like this was just far too much work
Thanks again
Geoff

[BarryK]

I'm thinking that I'll take Pup 2.17.1 back to HomeBank -- it may have limited features, but at least you know what you're getting. Grisbi seems to be full of nasty surprises.

[TonshA]

Hello

Even though I don't personally use an accounting package, I found this thread quite interesting. So I did a search of various accounting packagaes available on linux/unix. The following is a selection of links I found:

http://jalia.sourceforge.net/
http://eqonomize.sourceforge.net/index.html
http://tnemeth.free.fr/projets/gAcc-en.html
http://gnofin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.abisource.com/~msevior/
http://www.arachnoid.com/PLCash/index.html
http://www.eekboek.nl/
http://www.honeycalc.com/phpwcms/index.php?id=4,0,0,1,0,0
http://buddi.sourceforge.net/en/
http://jgnash.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://www.freehackers.org/Opale/
http://tony.maro.net/ossramblings/cbt.php

Quite a few of these websites are not in english - which is a shame (especially for eekboek which looks rather powerful).

Equonomize looks fairly comprehensive, and claims to be double-entry as well, but it is based on QT so I've no idea how big it would be. Buddi looks interesting for personal accounting too.

Hey! Maybe someone could put together an Accounting SFS! (I've no idea where to start with something like that, I'm afraid... )

My own personal tastes run to personal/family budgetting, and I found a very intersting (commercial) package called YNAB:

http://www.youneedabudget.com/

The original product is an excel spreadsheet, although now Jesse is selling a Windows app, and is now looking at developing a web-based version.

Anyway, there was enough information on the product for me to produce a Gnumeric spreadsheet to do the same job, which I am currently testing on my own finances (and that was fun, 'cos i've never really got into spreadsheets before).

I may make it available one day.

The only other thing I found, which I thought was pretty cool, was TinyBooks:

http://www.winograd.com/ftinybooks.html

A Mac-only product unfortunately, but the website does give a lot of indication on how the app is SUPPOSED to work, and it does look very simple. If any of our fantastic developers wanted to create PUPPYBooks, this might be a good starting point (but make it double-entry please! )

DaveA

[TonshA]

A couple of extra links:

CBB is touted as being a Quicken clone. The project seems dead, but it is all tcl/tk so maybe someone in the Puppy community could resurrect it?
http://www.fifi.org/doc/cbb/html/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/cbb/
http://linux.about.com/cs/linux101/g/cbb.htm

Ledger is a command-line accounting system:
http://newartisans.com/ledger
http://www.linux.com/articles/58307

And a few more...
http://eurobudget.sourceforge.net/
http://www.linux-france.org/prj/gcompte/#ancre2
http://www.concentric.net/~Bereza/programming/jbooks/
http://pycheckbook.sourceforge.net/
http://clacct.sourceforge.net/
http://jmoney.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page


And did we already mention...?
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/index-basic.html

That's all for now!

DaveA

[GeoffS]

Mmmm! Lots of comments.
Barry
I really can't say which I dislike most, Homebank or Grisbi
Out of the programs I've commented on above they are the only ones I would now consider, with Grisbi maybe just a tiny bit ahead although Latex would have to be available for the printing.
There is Gnucash Version 2 still out there and if they have fixed the floating point bug and have otherwise left it as good as the original version it would have to be the best.

Dave
You have certainly found many programs. Are these all open and free?
I've used KMyMoney and quite liked it but it does require KDE. Adding KDE to Puppy for just one program is (to my mind) ridiculous. I never got it to work in that environment anyway. Always booted PCLinuxOS - just to run KMyMoney -

I know Quicken is a commercial product and has in recent versions become rather bloated offering gimicks that few, if any, people would use. However, it has set a standard and on a scale of 1 to 10, if Quicken is given 10 then KMyMoney might get 5 and the other programs mentioned here would fall in the 1 to 3 range. If GnuCash didn't have its floating point bug I might give it 5+ .

Dave, if I get the time I might have a look at some of those other programs but I can't promise. I'm running a bit short of time these days, working as a volunteer at a recycling centre, recycling old PCs and putting Puppy on them. Good fun!

Geoff

[TonshA]

I am shocked to have found a few more:

http://lunafin.jccnet.de/#shot
http://omnis.if.ufrj.br/~lsk/akount/index.html
http://aqmoney.sourceforge.net/
http://freeyourbox.org/apps/chkbk/
http://www.divifund.com/
http://www.garandnet.net/kbudget/
http://nhw.pl/wp/yafm/

Well now. All these links aren't very helpful are they? I wish I could provide some kind of reviews of the various packages, or even .PETs for people to try. Unfortunately, I've never tried any of them, and I don't know how to compile/package applications (but I suppose I could learn - if anybody fancies pointing me in the right direction..?)

For the time being, I will continue refining my YNAB/GNAB (Gnumeric Needs A Budget) spreadsheet.

DaveA

[TonshA]

Hi Geoff

I've got be careful how I answer you here because my interest is purely from curiosity's sake! I have no intention of using any Accounting software for myself, so the decisions as to what is best for Puppy should be left to yourself (as the person providing most of the input) and those other users who are going to use the apps!

[BarryK]

Wow, that's a lot of linksto checkout, but I too have a time problem. I'll leave HomeBank in 2.17.1, even though it's not very satisfactory -- although we must always remember that it's version 3.2.1 not the latest -- for pup 2.18 I intend to upgrade to GTK 2.10.x and then will be able to test the latest HomeBank -- then maybe it will redeem itself.

Also, before 2.18 arrives, we can checkout some of these links.

[muggins]

hi TonshA,

i added cbtracker & cbb to the addtitional pups section:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=20457

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=20460

[TonshA]

[mellowraith2010]

HI Geoff,I read in your post that Kmymoney works,Did you use it personally? I would be interested in how to get it installed. I used muppy w kde and couldnt get it to work,any hints on getting it in there would be apreciated. thanks,glenn

[GeoffS]

Sorry to disappoint but I never got it to work properly under Puppy. I had it installed in PCLinuxOS. Tried various schemes from Puppy but they never worked properly.
It is not too bad as a bookkeeping program - faint praise I know
I would be using it if I had been able to get it to work un Puppy.
Cheers
Geoff

[mellowraith2010]

Thanks for the response Geoff,I think Pclinuxos was the first time I ran into kmymoney2. I have been using it about two years now,and I find that it works great for simple bank accounts/credit cards. I love the interface,but wish that I could get it to go in puppy because I love puppy alot,and the only thing lacking (for me anyway) is kmymoney. I guess I could try out another app that is similiar like I have seen on the forums here,but starting from scratch would be really tough,and a big time-effort investment. I will keep using puppy because it is too cool! and use ubuntu or pclos or whatever ,just for the kmymoney app. Take care,glenn

[SimplyFlower]