[ Thanks to Poet
for this announcement: ]
Open System Accounting
(OSA)
Project Document & Announcement
Scope:
To provide a client-server open-source based accounting system.
The system will initially be competitive to the functionality of
the Intuit QuickBooks product.
Participating:
For those interested in participating we encourage you to
subscribe to the mailing list. You may subscribe by sending and
email to openacct-request@linuxports.com
with the words Subscribe in the subject field. This is a low
traffic list. We are expecting development to start within the next
30 days. This project will initially be a SourceForge project. You
can see more information about the project at http://sourceforge.net/projects/openacct/
.
Justification:
Linux is the fastest growing operating system. It is outpacing
Microsoft and Apple in growth. Unfortunately for the business world
Linux lacks three things.
- *A solid, stable, feature-rich office suite.
- *A solid, stable, feature-rich groupware application.
- *A solid, stable, feature-rich financial/accounting
application.
The office suite and groupware application are currently under
heavy development with other projects. The only decent financial
Open Source application is GnuCash. GnuCash is a Intuit Quicken
like program. It is excellent for a single person to track their
finances.
Intuit QuickBooks is the most widely used small business
accounting application. It is excellent for independent
contractors, companies with a minium of product or companies that
do not do electronic quoting.
It does not scale, and has only basic multi-user access. Open
Accounting will provide a fully enterprise capable platform for the
small business. It will provide several key functions that no other
small business financial application does.
- It will be free.
- It will built on proven, non-proprietary technology.
- It will be truly multi-user. The only limitation will be the
hardware the server is residing on. - It will be truly interoperable. It will interface tightly with
each native platform. Initially Linux/KDE and Linux/ncurses. - It will be developed in a client-server model. The clients will
be designed for information display and retrieval only. All
transactions will take place on the server.
Technology Overview:
The project will be broken in to three primary sub-projects.
1. Server
The server will be developed using PostgreSQL. The initial
version will be 7.0.2.
2. Web
Their will be a web based client available for the system. This
does not fall under the client sub-project due to its limited
nature. The web project will consist of the ability to view and
update customer contact information and run stored reports from the
server. A security paradigm will be in implemented.
3. Client
The long-term goal of this project is to provide clients for the
three major operating systems.
1. Linux – The Linux interface will be written in QT and Kparts
to allow full interaction with the Koffice suite and KDE2.We will
also include a curses based interface.
2. Windows – The Windows interface will be written in Delphi and
will integrate with Microsoft Office.
3. Apple – The apple interface will be written in a native apple
tool kit.
The short-term goal will be to provide the Linux and Web based
clients only.
Server Overview:
We will rely heavily on SQL. The basic rule is the server does
all the work. Clients are utilized for data display only.
If SQL is not capable of providing an efficient means of
delivering the data to the client we will utilize a language
binding to the server itself.
Language usage:
This is in discussion. It looks like it will be C++ or Python.
Possibly both depending on the task. We want to be able to write
server side reports that are more sophisticated than standard SQL
but we don’t want people to have to learn C/C++ to do so.
Toolkit usage:
Initially we will write for QT and KDE2. We will write the
interfaces in such a way that they can easily be migrated to Gnome
and GTK.
Client Overview:
We will use the clients to interact with the server. The purpose
of the client will be to display or transfer data only. Computation
will take place on the server side or via and external application
such as Kspread.
Functionality:
Data Entry
Stored Report Viewer
Stored Report Writer
Project Scope:
The initial release will be to provide a proof-of-concept only.
The proof-of-concept should be able to perform the following
functions.
Overview:
1. Customer management.
2. Basic Invoicing.
3. Basic AR/AP.
4. Basic financial account management.
5. Include the basic reports, overdue invoices, profit and loss,
total sales, balance sheet.
6. Basic inventory.
Developers and Resources:
Hardware, Net:
Command Prompt, Inc. will provide computing, development and
testing facilities. Initially through SourceForge.
Project Leader:
Command Prompt, Inc. will lead the project.
Additional needs:
Below is an example of actual additional needs. We are looking
for feedback for the amount of people and hardware resources that
will be needed. Please provide feedback.
CVS Manager:
We will need someone to be the CVS master. This could be a dual
role.
KDE Client Developer:
This person will be in charge of overall design and
implementation of the KDE client interface.
Web Client Developer:
This person will be in charge of the overall design and
implementation of the PHP based web interface.
Curses Client Developer:
This person will be in charge of the overall design and
implementation of the VT100, curses based interface.
Postgresql Developer: