Free accounting software

[Derek27]

If anyone's looking for accounting software you can run from your desktop, without subscribing or storing your data on a server, this is great stuff, free and open source.

It's perfect for keeping personal accounts or trading accounts, designed for small businesses with payroll and flexible reports. Stores data in XML files or SQL, and has Python extensions allowing you to manipulate the data. I'm still learning to use it but it may be possible to write a script to read the Betfair CSV files and dump market P/Ls into its database instead of just adding my daily P/Ls.

I think I'll be making a generous donation to the team of developers/volunteers. Never understood why people work so hard for free.

https://www.gnucash.org/

[Euler]

It's funny you posted this as I was looking around recently as I can't believe how expensive cloud base accounting is. They just keep bumping up the cost on a regular basis to the point it's crazy.

I mean accounting is a rule based system within a spreadsheet style database of transactions. It's not complicated for 99% of the people that want to use it. It just seems so expensive.

[greenmark]

If anyone's looking for accounting software you can run from your desktop, without subscribing or storing your data on a server, this is great stuff, free and open source.

It's perfect for keeping personal accounts or trading accounts, designed for small businesses with payroll and flexible reports. Stores data in XML files or SQL, and has Python extensions allowing you to manipulate the data. I'm still learning to use it but it may be possible to write a script to read the Betfair CSV files and dump market P/Ls into its database instead of just adding my daily P/Ls.

I think I'll be making a generous donation to the team of developers/volunteers. Never understood why people work so hard for free.

https://www.gnucash.org/

The usual strategy for free software is to draw you in, get you to invest time and data then start making features premium only. S you end up paying.

[Derek27]

If anyone's looking for accounting software you can run from your desktop, without subscribing or storing your data on a server, this is great stuff, free and open source.

It's perfect for keeping personal accounts or trading accounts, designed for small businesses with payroll and flexible reports. Stores data in XML files or SQL, and has Python extensions allowing you to manipulate the data. I'm still learning to use it but it may be possible to write a script to read the Betfair CSV files and dump market P/Ls into its database instead of just adding my daily P/Ls.

I think I'll be making a generous donation to the team of developers/volunteers. Never understood why people work so hard for free.

https://www.gnucash.org/

The usual strategy for free software is to draw you in, get you to invest time and data then start making features premium only. S you end up paying.

This is desktop software, which means once you've installed it it will continue to work. You wouldn't be able to update it, but this stuff has been written by unpaid volunteers and it's open source.

[greenmark]

If anyone's looking for accounting software you can run from your desktop, without subscribing or storing your data on a server, this is great stuff, free and open source.

It's perfect for keeping personal accounts or trading accounts, designed for small businesses with payroll and flexible reports. Stores data in XML files or SQL, and has Python extensions allowing you to manipulate the data. I'm still learning to use it but it may be possible to write a script to read the Betfair CSV files and dump market P/Ls into its database instead of just adding my daily P/Ls.

I think I'll be making a generous donation to the team of developers/volunteers. Never understood why people work so hard for free.

https://www.gnucash.org/

The usual strategy for free software is to draw you in, get you to invest time and data then start making features premium only. S you end up paying.

This is desktop software, which means once you've installed it it will continue to work. You wouldn't be able to update it, but this stuff has been written by unpaid volunteers and it's open source.

You are joking, surely. Download any software and you are taking a leap in the dark. Once their software is on your computer you are at their mercy. The trick is to only choose reliable sources.

[Derek27]

The usual strategy for free software is to draw you in, get you to invest time and data then start making features premium only. S you end up paying.

This is desktop software, which means once you've installed it it will continue to work. You wouldn't be able to update it, but this stuff has been written by unpaid volunteers and it's open source.

You are joking, surely. Download any software and you are taking a leap in the dark. Once their software is on your computer you are at their mercy. The trick is to only choose reliable sources.

It's open source. You can even compile it yourself if you want. If I was that untrusting I wouldn't be able to use any software on my devices. Microsoft is hardly a trustworthy company!

[Euler]

Had a nose at some accounting forums last night and a common recommendation is: -

https://www.freeagent.com/

[gstar1975]

Had a nose at some accounting forums last night and a common recommendation is: -

https://www.freeagent.com/

I was also looking the other day and found TraderVue but this is only for the Stock Market. but if we can get something like this for Sports trading that would be great.

https://www.tradervue.com/

[Realrocknrolla]

I use this for my business. Commusoft integrates with it

Had a nose at some accounting forums last night and a common recommendation is: -

https://www.freeagent.com/

[greenmark]

This is desktop software, which means once you've installed it it will continue to work. You wouldn't be able to update it, but this stuff has been written by unpaid volunteers and it's open source.

You are joking, surely. Download any software and you are taking a leap in the dark. Once their software is on your computer you are at their mercy. The trick is to only choose reliable sources.

It's open source. You can even compile it yourself if you want. If I was that untrusting I wouldn't be able to use any software on my devices. Microsoft is hardly a trustworthy company!

So you;ve been through the source code to look for dodgy stuff? Or do you have a method for protecting your data from dodggy software? A friend of mine had a laptop that he put no senesitive data on and when things went pear-shaped he could refresh it completely within a couple of hours.

[Derek27]

You are joking, surely. Download any software and you are taking a leap in the dark. Once their software is on your computer you are at their mercy. The trick is to only choose reliable sources.

It's open source. You can even compile it yourself if you want. If I was that untrusting I wouldn't be able to use any software on my devices. Microsoft is hardly a trustworthy company!

So you;ve been through the source code to look for dodgy stuff? Or do you have a method for protecting your data from dodggy software? A friend of mine had a laptop that he put no senesitive data on and when things went pear-shaped he could refresh it completely within a couple of hours.

Firstly, if the source code is made public and you have the option of compiling it yourself if you're really paranoid, you can be confident there's no malicious code in there. Nobody in their right mind would make malicious code public and leave themselves open to prosecution.

Secondly, you can get a feel for how trustworthy a software publisher is just by looking at the software, seeing how it works, the effort put in to producing it and the manuals. They are all volunteer contributors in the same way people volunteer help on this forum. You can even converse with the producers of the product.

And yes, if I had a major disaster I can restore my system drive in about 20 minutes, with my data volume remaining in tack. If I lost my system and data I could restore the lot in under an hour.

[greenmark]

It's open source. You can even compile it yourself if you want. If I was that untrusting I wouldn't be able to use any software on my devices. Microsoft is hardly a trustworthy company!

So you;ve been through the source code to look for dodgy stuff? Or do you have a method for protecting your data from dodggy software? A friend of mine had a laptop that he put no senesitive data on and when things went pear-shaped he could refresh it completely within a couple of hours.

Firstly, if the source code is made public and you have the option of compiling it yourself if you're really paranoid, you can be confident there's no malicious code in there. Nobody in their right mind would make malicious code public and leave themselves open to prosecution.

Secondly, you can get a feel for how trustworthy a software publisher is just by looking at the software, seeing how it works, the effort put in to producing it and the manuals. They are all volunteer contributors in the same way people volunteer help on this forum. You can even converse with the producers of the product.

And yes, if I had a major disaster I can restore my system drive in about 20 minutes, with my data volume remaining in tack. If I lost my system and data I could restore the lot in under an hour.

OK so you haven't vetted the source code yourself and rely on the self-regulation of open source to protet you. Fair enough. I bought BA felling that it was legit. It has proved to be true. But it was a leap in the dark. BA has a vested interest in producing reliable clean software. Open source? Why would you produce useful software for free? That's not a confrontation, just why would you do that? The effort is simply massive. Is this this like a mega-hobby for these folks?

[Derek27]

So you;ve been through the source code to look for dodgy stuff? Or do you have a method for protecting your data from dodggy software? A friend of mine had a laptop that he put no senesitive data on and when things went pear-shaped he could refresh it completely within a couple of hours.

Firstly, if the source code is made public and you have the option of compiling it yourself if you're really paranoid, you can be confident there's no malicious code in there. Nobody in their right mind would make malicious code public and leave themselves open to prosecution.

Secondly, you can get a feel for how trustworthy a software publisher is just by looking at the software, seeing how it works, the effort put in to producing it and the manuals. They are all volunteer contributors in the same way people volunteer help on this forum. You can even converse with the producers of the product.

And yes, if I had a major disaster I can restore my system drive in about 20 minutes, with my data volume remaining in tack. If I lost my system and data I could restore the lot in under an hour.

OK so you haven't vetted the source code yourself and rely on the self-regulation of open source to protet you. Fair enough. I bought BA felling that it was legit. It has proved to be true. But it was a leap in the dark. BA has a vested interest in producing reliable clean software. Open source? Why would you produce useful software for free? That's not a confrontation, just why would you do that? The effort is simply massive. Is this this like a mega-hobby for these folks?

Installing BA certainly wasn't a leap in the dark! There were two reasons to be confident that the software was genuine. One is that there's more money to be made in producing quality software that helps traders trade, then trying to empty somebody's Betfair account, which wouldn't last long. The other is just reading people's comments on the forum. Peter's even posted hundreds of videos so you could decide for yourself how genuine he is.

I guess it is a mega hobby to some, but if you do a search, LinusP said something about how much his trading has improved since he went open source with his Python wrapper, which he obviously put a lot of work into. It does have benefits that doesn't immediately meet the eye.

[ForFolksSake]

Don't see what the problem is . Enjoy it while it's free.
Geek's Toy was free for a long time

[Derek27]

I think I used Geek's Toy when it was free. The software I used before BA was free for quite a while, before they started charging just £6.99 a month for it, a bargain even though it's far less featured than BA.

Not all software vendors are trying to extort money out of you Greenmark, many are just making an honest living and expect to get paid for their hard work, just like the rest of us.