Small Business Accounting Software

[Christopher Browne]

On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Mike Kallies <mike.kallies-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Hey Everyone,
>
> I'm curious about experiences and recommendations with small business
> accounting/bookkeeping software.  This is a new area for me, so packages
> or services with pointers to good documentation and a community of
> Ontario small business people using it would be a huge plus.
>
> I'm thinking FOSS of course, but online services work too.

The answer which I have been finding preferred, over and over, is Ledger.
   http://ledger-cli.org/  [1]

It's not notably amenable to multi-user usage, but there's not much
need for that with small businesses, is there?  If it's a small
business, there isn't a need for multiple accountants, right?

The data is readily human-readable without any need to run it through
any special software, which is *notably* valuable when dealing with a
professional accountant.

They're likely to be keen on only two answers:
a) Use "My Favorite Piece Of Software," which is most likely
QuickBooks, and you'll fight with that answer at considerable peril
that might include the accountant telling you to go away, or
b) Let's review the output in detail, in which case ledger data should
prove pretty easy to work with.

[1] See also...
http://hledger.org/
https://github.com/jwiegley/beancount
https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger
https://github.com/iterationlabs/reckon

There is an Emacs, mode, of course!
https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger/tree/next/lisp
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