On Sat, Feb 28, 2015 at 6:46 PM, Jeremy Baron jeremy@tuxmachine.com wrote:

On Feb 28, 2015 12:07 PM, "rupert THURNER" rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:

...

What is so special about npo s so that Accounting software would need to be special? Or open source accounting software just does not exist?

You might start by reading Nemo's link. (The "Background" section is a good place to start.)

oh, should have stated that i read that. maybe it is better to copy out what seems to be the reason:

"Our auditors were only familiar with proprietary accounting software, and so our system seemed foreign to them, as it relies on Ledger CLI's text files, Emacs and version control. During their questions about our setup, we asked them to hypothetically prescribe a specific proprietary software setup as a model for managing Conservancy's accounts. Our chief auditor started by mentioning a few well-known proprietary solutions. But then he paused and continued: Given that Conservancy's a fiscal sponsor with so many temporarily restricted accounts, existing systems really wouldn't do that good of a job for you."

this means that they use ledger cli, a software written in the C++ programming language. in a time where 95% of the software is written in languages like PHP, Python, Ruby, Java. for human beeings, this would be comparable to speak latin nowadays. they use command line interface (cli) when 95 % of the software has some native or web GUI. last but not least they state that "they have restricted accounts", when 100% of the companies operate with restricted budgets.

i would have loved to read why other software is not good enough, amongst them: * odoo: https://www.odoo.com/page/accounting, or its fork tryton: http://www.tryton.org/ * adempiere: http://www.adempiere.com/ADempiere_ERP * compiere: http://www.compiere.com/ * SQL ledger: http://www.sql-ledger.com/

or others out of the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software

or did i overlook something?

best, rupert