[Debian-uk] open-source accounting in the UK?

[Philip Hands]

Hi Daniel,

Daniel Pocock <daniel at pocock.com.au> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I'm just wondering if anybody else is using any of the open source
> accounting solutions (e.g. PostBooks, GnuCash) in the UK and in
> particular, for preparing UK VAT reports?
>
> Also, has anybody had any positive (or negative?) experiences with
> accountants/book-keepers who have worked with data managed in one of
> these open-source solutions, e.g. when you give them access to the
> system for end-of-year accounts/tax return completion?

I use ledger-cli (and more recently hledger on the same data).  I just
spent the afternoon with my accountant, and now we seem to be on the
same page as far as what I'm doing with ledger --- it's hardly a system
that a normal person might like though.

Before that I tried OpenERP and then Tryton -- I probably would have
stuck with Tryton if my experience with OpenERP's worthless UK chart of
accounts, combined with my somewhat hazy understanding of what should
have been going on, hadn't put me off the whole idea.  I'd imagine that
the chart of accounts has been fixed or at least deleted (well, they
closed the bug report about 18 months after I reported it without
comment, so I guess they did something about it -- right? ;-) ).

I first started looking for a replacement accounting system when Labour
helpfully twiddled with the VAT rate, which my cobbled together mess of
perl and postgres wasn't quite ready for -- I thought that was a good
time to find something better -- I would have been _much_ better off
adding the very few tweaks required to vary the vat rate on my old
system :-/

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 835 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/debian-uk/attachments/20131004/0d5ac031/attachment.pgp>