Amiga Accounting Software

[matt3k]

http://www.e-conomic.co.uk/ here in Denmark it's one of the systems that is usually recommended. There is also Microsoft Navision online.
C5 Online, http://www.c5online.nu this page is in danish, but I guess you can get it in other langauges. C5 really have everything that is needed.

There really is no need to reinvent CRM/ERP programs.

Good point, but I would rather run the application natively on my Classic Amiga.  

I will keep up the quest for find the best Amiga Accounting Solution!

Regards,

M

[Kesa]

I don't think having dedicated accounting software is required for personal use. Except maybe if you wanted it to go online or something. The problem i have with accounting software is that much of it is not neccessary and just gets in the way. I use Excel 97 which has templates built in which is enough for my personal use and it's really simple to use. Personally i think Libre Office would be the best choice for the Amiga if it ever comes out. But maybe this would not be enough if you wanted to do more than just bookkeeping.

What type of accounting did you want to do out of curiosity?

[matt3k]

I don't think having dedicated accounting software is required for personal use. Except maybe if you wanted it to go online or something. The problem i have with accounting software is that much of it is not neccessary and just gets in the way. I use Excel 97 which has templates built in which is enough for my personal use and it's really simple to use. Personally i think Libre Office would be the best choice for the Amiga if it ever comes out. But maybe this would not be enough if you wanted to do more than just bookkeeping.

What type of accounting did you want to do out of curiosity?

Its twofold.
1.  Looking to replace CheckItOut, which I currently use for my home finances.  As it stands, I will probably be keeping it for that task.  I tested Phasar, which has some better features, but the reporting and data entry is dicey.

2.  I'm helping out with a very small local nonprofit.  I need real subledger and decent controls and billing.  So far the only contender is Easy Ledger, I have to further test it to be sure...

Shame the Amiga doesn't have more to offer here, I'm certain that there are other capable accounting systems that were lost in time...

Take care,

M

[yssing]

http://aminet.net/search?query=accounting This search gives you a few choices. I am at work now, so I can't try any of them right now.

[yssing]

@kesa there is a huge difference between personal and business use of accounting software.
In the business you might want to keep track of stock, have a list of debtors and creditors, create bills and other forms, keep track of VAT, which might be a different percentage from item to item and so on.
Maybe you would also like it to keep track of salary and other employee related numbers.

[matt3k]

http://aminet.net/search?query=accounting This search gives you a few choices. I am at work now, so I can't try any of them right now.

I tried them all as part of this experiment...  All of them were home accounting except the demo for easy ledger 2.

@Kesa,
As yssing said real accounting use is vastly different from home use.  Every amiga home accounting system would not pass an audit and make the management letter.  GAAP forbids deleting historical transactions without a reversing entry, for example.  Even entry systems on the PC (quickbooks and peachtree/sage 50) allow for historical deleting  without and audit trail and can fail the audit (depending on the cpa firm)

That aside, running even a simple ap/ar aging from a spreadsheet would be a real pain.

[Kesa]

What i meant was that modern accounting software has so many features that most will never be used. Things like tax and payroll. I have seen experienced charted accountants baffled at some of the things in some of the software. I think a lot of it is just bloatware.

[yssing]

@kesa I agree with you, there are a lot of features, that the home user will never use.

@matt3k Here in Denmark you are required by law, to save every thing in your records for 5 years, I don't know how it is in other countries, but I would guess that it is similar.

I have experience with accounting software, I have developed stuff in C5 and used XAL before, I even had a crash course in SAP.

By the way, there has to be something for QT.

[Hans_]

@matt3k Here in Denmark you are required by law, to save every thing in your records for 5 years, I don't know how it is in other countries, but I would guess that it is similar.

Here in NZ, the time limit id 7 years. However, if the IRD deem a tax return to be fraudulent, then there is no time limit on how far back they can go. So, keeping records for longer is worth considering.

Hans

[matt3k]

@Yssing and Hans.

Retention is important agreed and most software I have come across can retain multiple years without and issue.

The big issue is deletion of prior year activity without an audit trail.  In entry level software it is easy to write yourself a check by changing a vendor name, printing a check, and then renaming the vendor back.  Or simply delete a check or entry and invalid financial statements.  Fraud controls like vendor level tracking and requiring a reversing entry to adjust balances are hard to find in Amiga circa 80-90's software .

Still have to play with Easy Ledgers 1 a bit to see how good it is...

Fun exercise anyways...

[Jeff Jones]

I am interested in using Amiga. At present using accounting services from Zipbooks. We need to maintain double entry system and its a bit difficult. Balance sheet, Cash Flow Statement and General Ledger are very important to me.

[Pat the Cat]

What accounting software you can use on the Amiga depends on 2 big  factors. Your local trading laws, and what Amiga you want to use.

Typically,  most people doing this are very small businesses to medium businesses  doing their own accounts. So even a very simple package like Easy Ledger  might fit the bill. If you do your own, you certainly can use an Amiga  for basic accounting. Accountants aren't allowed to anymore.

https://www.mcguirewoods.com/Client-Resources/Alerts/2015/2/New-EU-Accounting-Directive.aspx

If  you are SELLING accountancy services, for use in the EU, it just won't  do what is needed to comply with the new EU accountancy regulations.

Why  is complex, but it boils down to this with Amiga releases and EU  history;- Prior to 1993, nothing had to be compliant with an EU  standard, but might require local rubber stamping as "suitable for use"  when selling accounting services. Most packages didn't really take  import/export affairs into consideration as well as you would need now,  but were OK, if you can stand the look of the thing. Some of it was  written in Hisoft Basic or even AMOS, the PD versions (freeware, not  open source usually). Even that could do your job, if you look, and  check it will run on your local Amiga.

If you are doing your own  accounts, it doesn't matter. If you are using accountancy services, THEY  have to comply and are hiking their prices.

In my neighbourhood, UK, All PLCs have to be  independently audited, they pay the bill, but don't have to use EU compliant accounting software so long as they can present legitimate records to the auditor (who must use EU complaint methods to assess it and either pass or fail the set of accounts). Sole traders do their own accounts, don't get  audited very often, and wave two fingers at the EU and everybody else  except their local tax service. Who don't have to talk to anyone except  the local ruling class.

What does matter if you are a sole trader  is submitting tax returns, and I'd better get mine sorted quickly, I'm 4  years late already. Got another 16 years before I'm as bad as Donald Trump with things like that.

[David Wright]

Trump's taxes are up to date and compliant.
Keep your own house in order.

[matt3k]

Hi Jeff,

The only solution I have come across is easy ledgers, but the reporting is not very robust (at least in version 1, haven't found version 2 yet).  There was another accounting system back in the day, think it was a billing system with accounting...  

Most of the systems are simple check registers, some with quickbooks functions.

An indirect or direct Cash flow statement will be a real chore to find on the Amiga, and I would wager doesn't exist in any accounting software...

When I get my mess of amigas put together I will take a look to confirm that easy ledger doesn't do cash flow...

CheckItOut is a nice, simple, get the job done simple accounting software.  Sadly I don't know if you will be able to track down the author to get a key for it.  Go to Aminet and try it out...

I am interested in using Amiga. At present using accounting services from Zipbooks. We need to maintain double entry system and its a bit difficult. Balance sheet, Cash Flow Statement and General Ledger are very important to me.

[Pat the Cat]

Well, I don't know what happened. Because there were DOZENS of choices released. I don't know what happened to this one, but they were out there, and probably still are, mostly. I find it hilarious that the Amiga is being considered for this role 25 years later, but economics plays funny tricks on us all.

http://amr.abime.net/issue_194_coverdisks

Guess who wrote. And had to get corrected multiple times doing so, it's true.

That one was good with a real time clock, did cashflow in real time or near as dammit. I don't know if it's suitable, but you could get SuperBase  (SuperCalc?) for the Amiga, so you have thousands of possible archaic choices really. PFM an early one that was OK. Not for large operations. Time is not easy to account for on a global scale, not much from that era did really. Ideally you would want to check and correct the clock every so often, they were not that accurate to the second for an infiite period. It's not Rugby Radio clock or whatever internet standard.

PFM sticks in my mind, the Superwhatever option(s?) were very expensive and very powerful for datacrunching. That isn't what you want unless you're a crazily talented with them already. Real people and real companies used PFM, it hung around for a while. Pretty solid coding in C I think.

Don't do accounts on a 1.3 Amiga if you can avoid doing so, because you can't use keymaps at all well for different currencies I think. Use 2.0 or later, you want locales etc. 3.1 onwards does it best, but you need a fast system with fast RAM whatever Amiga OS ideally. 7MHz is too slow sometimes, especially later releases that expected more punch. The pretty graphics are a real processor eater sometimes, if you want 256 colour graphics. It's better to stick to lowres or hires grayscale. Or similar simple colours that aren't crippling eyestrainers. If you try and make it look like a half modern PC, it runs a lot slower. It can look like accelerated Mac Classic, pretty elegant and responsive.

The equally free (? Some versions PFM I think) HomeBank app appears to  have been sourced from this or other developed Amiga accountancy tool.  It is not available for the AmigaOS on a native Amiga machine.
http://homebank.free.fr/

[Pat the Cat]

... Or simply delete a check or entry and invalid financial statements.  Fraud controls like vendor level tracking and requiring a reversing entry to adjust balances are hard to find in Amiga circa 80-90's software .

This is true, none of the software from that era can do proper anti-fraud measures, they are NOT implemented. At all.

I guess it would be possible on some solutions to add those controls via an Arexx port, if that software has such a port that gives forwarding and receiving commands to the accounting system. It is no trivial thing to do that do any good measure. Don't do accountancy for somebody else, but a company does itself not have to comply if they are doing their own accounts. They still have to keep fair accounts and present them for auditing. In England and Wales, they do. "fair" covers quite a bit of ground here.

You could not do that live on an Amiga, hooked up to the internet, doing other peoples accounts, using an Amiga. You could do it on an Amiga, entering data manually. That's two different things entirely. Hooking it up to a network is a little risky. Keeping it offline and feeding written or printed data to it (easily kept for verification) is the more sensible way to go. You don't need accounts to get second by second updates of stock expenditure usually. If you have lots of data you could burn that on a CD-ROM and feed it. You also need to securely record the information you get back out of the accounts package. For further verification, obviously.

I did a search of aminet on "Finance", nothing usable in itself for purpose, some demo contenders maybe, also good demo if you want to learn how Stock Exchanges are played, for real money, in the real world (it's a sim, don't get that amazed).

http://aminet.net/search?query=finance