OSS Accounting Advice

[Matt Graham]

From: Nathan England <nathan at paysonlinux.org>
> I need some OSS accounting software that is compatible with what an
> accountant would use.

AFAICT, accountants are all welded to proprietary crap, and will react badly
to things that don't fit in their mental models.  Maybe I've just been exposed
to low-quality accountants.

> I know about GnuCash, and I will likely have to learn double-entry
> accounting, or what ever it is called, which so far has not made any
> sense to me. I understand the concept, but as for getting it into
> GnuCash, it has not worked for me.

Explain further, please.  Don't try to put *everything* into GNUcash at once. 
Pick a day (like Jan 1, 2011), then put all the balances all your accounts had
on that day in as the opening balances.  Then enter in all the transactions
you had for the next N days.  Like so:

2011-01-01 Opening Balances: Checking Account +5341.22
2011-01-01 Opening Balances: Savings Account  +1234.56
2011-01-01 Opening Balances: Wallet           +31.02
2011-01-01 Opening Balances: Mortgage Loan    +waytoomuch
2011-01-01 Expenses: Lunch                    +9.25
2011-01-01 Accounts: Wallet                   -9.25
2011-01-01 Accounts: Checking Account         -40.00
2011-01-01 Accounts: Wallet                   +40.00

...opening balances, spent $9.25 on lunch, got $40 out of the ATM, etcetera. 
I learned how to use the program by reading the docs.  I've been using it for
almost 11 years, though, so it's second nature.  

> I plan to look into MoneyDance, it is pretty and my wife likes it,
> but I am not real familiar with it either. Advice?

Never used it, mostly because it doesn't fit the "OSS" criterion you stated up
above, and in 2000, my machine had only 96M RAM, so running Java anything was
pretty much a non-starter.  OTOH, the FAQ says it can import transactions from
a lot of banks, which may be useful to you.  I usually have < 5 transactions
per day, so manually entering them is easy.  YMMV on that.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see