Accounting software.

[Eric Cope]

Thats exactly what I do. I develop on a Macbook Pro, but Quickbooks for Mac
is decades behind Quickbooks for Windows. So, I run Quickbooks 2007 inside
a Virtualbox VM running Windows XP. Then, I was able to bring in my
quickbooks file to my accountant for taxes on a thumb drive and be prepared.

On a side note, Quickbooks does support a Linux host for their multi-user
platforms. In fact, if you google "quickbooks FreeBSD" my old blog still
ranks #1 :) - a side-side note - I had forgotten how to do it, but Google
reminded me of it :)

Eric

On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 10:57 PM, Derek Trotter <expat.arizonan at gmail.com>wrote:

>  I also dislike windows, but have no opinion of quickbooks.
>
> I would suggest to anyone starting a business that they use linux for
> everything they can.  Also they should use vmware or some similar
> virtualization app plus windows for any software they absolutely must have
> that does not run on linux or does not have a suitable linux equivalent.
> That way the new small business owner can use windows for quickbooks plus
> use linux for everything else.  Also it would make backing up the windows
> installation easier.  Just copy  the one file your virtualization software
> uses for the windows hard drive.
>
> I'm thinking this would work.  Is there something I'm missing?
>
>
> On 4/26/2012 21:30, Eric Cope wrote:
>
> I know you asked for free and Linux, but if you are serious about starting a business, you should consider Quickbooks. I think it's obnoxious, but I can take my Quickbooks file to any accountant and they can update, analyze, and/or correct it as necessary. You can find cheap older versions on Craigslist or eBay.
>
> I despise recommending Quickbooks AND windows, but it's  been the right tool, which is more important to me.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Eric
>
> On Apr 26, 2012, at 8:39 PM, Nathan England <nathan at nmecs.com> <nathan at nmecs.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> I appreciate the info and the quick lesson. I found the program extremely unintuitive, but double-entry accounting completely escapes me!
>
> On Thursday, April 26, 2012 19:07:20 Matt Graham wrote:
>
>  From: Nathan England <nathan at nmecs.com> <nathan at nmecs.com>
>
>  http://moneydance.com/
> Is by far the best, though it is not free
>
>  The OP said he was looking for free stuff. I guess this might work if
> you're willing to pay them whatever yearly fee they're charging now.
>
>
>  GnuCash is an accounting program but it is so complicated to use it
> is not worth the time or hassle.
>
>  Seriously? I started using GNUcash in 2000, when the documentation was
> barely there. I've never had any formal accounting training, and I figured
> it all out pretty quickly. The double-entry bookkeeping that GNUcash uses
> makes it really easy to see how much you've spent from date X to date Y on
> (category of expenses), and it'll track stocks/bonds/mutual funds if you
> install Finance::Quote.
>
> Take a look at the basic help,http://gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-help/help.html , and see if anything
> in the advanced help ,http://gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/index.html is interesting.
>
> The thing to do when setting up GNUcash is to start out your checking
> account opening balance with the opening balance on the first of (month),
> then just enter all the income/expenses from then til today that are on
> your bank statement. Start your cash in wallet opening balance with the
> bills in your wallet. *DON'T* try to enter everything you have records of,
> just pick a start date.[0] Then spend 5 minutes every day recording what
> you spent that day and what you spent it on. It should become second
> nature pretty quickly.
>
> If you're going somewhere without your computer[1], one way to keep records
> is to write down how much cash is in your wallet right before you leave,
> and call that X. Then write down how much is in there when you get back,
> and call that Y. Take (X - Y) and charge that to
> Expenses:Entertainment:Travel [2] with a description of "trip to
> $SOMEWHERE". Debit card/whatever charges will show up on your bank's page
> and you can just enter those numbers when you get back.
>
> If you're really hardcore, you can readhttp://gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/txns-registers1.html#txns-regis
> ters-multiaccount2 , so you can split every grocery/restaurant bill into
> "bill" and "sales tax". Then at the end of the year/month, you can complain
> about how the government's wasting your $XXX.YY on $THINGS_YOU_DONT_LIKE .
>
> [0] Accountants, feel free to gasp in horror here.
> [1] I know, that's crazy talk, man.
> [2] The default setup should create a bunch of expense accounts like that.
>
>  --
>
> Regards,
>
> Nathan England
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> NME Computer Services http://www.nmecs.com
> Nathan England (nathan at nmecs.com)
> Systems Administration / Web Application Development
> Information Security and Consulting(480) 559.9681
>
>
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