Free and Easy Open Source Accounting Software Recommendations?

April 22, 2008 7:57 PM

Looking for your experiences with open-source accounting software. I am helping co-found a non-profit organization and need software that is free (if possible), easy to use for non-accountants, and preferably open-source. Someone recommended OSAS (Open Systems Accounting Software) and gnucash. Has anyone used these or any other programs they would recommend or not recommend?
posted by franklen to Work & Money (3 answers total)

I use GnuCash for my accounting, and it works pretty well. I don't think it holds your hands as much as software like QuickBooks, but I haven't used anything else so I can't speak from experience. Overall it is easy to use, although sometimes the UI is a bit odd. The documentation is quite good and the concepts guide does a nice job of explaining basic accounting concepts in laymans terms and how to apply them in GnuCash.
posted by Emanuel at 8:38 PM on April 22, 2008

If you haven't seen SQL Ledger, you might want to add it to your list.

Also, if you are going to hire an accountant to do your 990 returns, you might want to check with them what packages they will be willing to work with, and whether they will charge you more for working with OSAS, GnuCash, or SQL Ledger than they would for QuickBooks for example.

I've briefly used GnuCash, but not enough to recommend or slam it.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:49 PM on April 22, 2008

I'm quite fond of JGNash, which is java based and cross-platform.
posted by Caviar at 7:30 AM on April 24, 2008 [1 favorite]