Accounting/Bookkeeping Application?

A friend of mine needs a simple financial accounting application. I tried to find a django based application, but only found dead projects.

Odoo is a professional open source solution, but it is not based on Django and I think it is “too big” for my use case.

Do you know an active accounting project?

I think we need some more details here. What are some project-specific details your friend needs implemented? Do you know how to use Django? Why is that solution “too big”?

Hi Suttonium,

I know how to use Django since several years.

In theory I could do everything on my own.

But I have no deeper understanding of financial accounting.

That’s why I am unsure: re-invent it from scratch or use an existing application.

There are two Python based solutions: ERPNext and Odoo. I had no closer look at them at the moment. Sad, but true, I could not find a living project which uses Django. But maybe I was blind and a cool Django based solution exists.

With “too big” I mean that Odoo or OpenERP maybe have so many features, which makes it too complicated, and finally a hand-made simple solution would be more feasible.

I know this is all a bit vague and not precise.

I just wanted to start a conversation. Maybe someone has more experience here?

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The problem with trying to use an “accounting-lite” type of package is that as soon as you encounter a situation that the software doesn’t handle, you’re stuck.

Most of the value from using this type of software comes from being able to generate reports and summaries from the data. For those reports to be of value, you do need to spend some time understanding what those reports are and how they help - either for your own planning and informational purposes, or for tax reporting purposes.

You’re a whole lot better off going with a more full-featured package and ignoring the parts you don’t need, than to spend a lot of time trying to make something work that can’t do that “one thing” that was omitted in the lesser package.

(Also, given how critical accurate reporting is, I’d be extremely wary of any home-built solution and the possibilities that I could generate an inaccurate report - both from my own cash-flow situation and from a tax reporting perspective.)

Ken

Thanks for the explanation. I just wasn’t sure what you needed from the original post. I hope you find what you’re looking for! :slight_smile:

Thank you KenWhitesell.

I agree with you. Building this from scratch is too risky.
During the last days I researched what could be used.
My current favorite is ERPNext. It is open source (not just
open core), and the underlying framework frappe looks solid.
I am bit sad, that I need to leave my loved django
development environment for this, but the good news is,
that ERPNext uses Python, too.

Did you find any solutions? I also looking for a similar solution.