Help me get my friends' businesses off the Microsoft and Intuit upgrade treadmills

June 13, 2007 1:10 AM

Has anybody already done the work of configuring GnuCash for an Australian small business? If so, what's involved in electronic submission of a BAS, and is there an easy way to transfer records to an accountant who thinks QuickBooks is the Only Thing? No more inside.
posted by flabdablet to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: Think carefully before doing this. Also, evaluate other GPL systems such as SQL-Ledger before committing yourself to GnuCash.

There does not appear to be any kind of export system for GnuCash, and I doubt Intuit will ever write an import for it. I'm not in Australian accounting, but I've never heard of a US accountant who works with GnuCash, and being a conservative breed, I doubt you'll find any in Australia who will rush to embrace it. If your friend's accountant is willing to do tax prep work from just a balance sheet and profit and loss statement for your friend's business, he can oprobably deal with GnuCash or SQL Ledger. If the accountant provides other services involving the books, and makes general journal entries, GnuCash will make him fire his client. The use of non-standard jargon by GnuCash developers, and having to learn a new software interface for just one client will not be worth the effort.

SQL-Ledger might be a better bet, but they make money by selling the documentation, so I can't really tell. They do have an Australian company chart of accounts available to start from, which is a good sign.

Another option is to use QuickBooks with WINE. I know people have done this in the past, but it might require a slightly older version of QB. Many accountants will use allow their clients to use three or four year old versions, which keeps the upgrades to a manageable rate.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:14 AM on June 13, 2007

Are you using Linux? I hear you can run the Mac ECI to submit the BAS.
posted by zamboni at 5:25 AM on June 13, 2007

I thought I saw something about a Linux ECI on one of the GnuCash forums.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:36 AM on June 13, 2007

Response by poster: Thanks, BrotherCaine: SQL Ledger does indeed look like the Right Thing. I'll write to the vendor to find out more.
posted by flabdablet at 11:27 PM on June 14, 2007