Graabein asks:
"I'm part of an effort to startup a VoIP provider. We've decided to use Open Source Software wherever possible. Production is not a problem, we can handle the VoIP network itself, POTS termination, web sites, email systems, all the usual stuff. The business side of things is another matter entirely. We need to be able to handle Customer Relationship data, manage subscriptions, handle invoicing and accounts, have a web shop of sorts, online billing, credit card transactions, and more. Whatever system we use has to be able to handle national standards for accounting, or at least be possible to modify to do so. We've looked at Compiere, but our business types are not impressed. Neither am I, for that matter. Requiring an Oracle license is one thing (database independence is 'in development', but it has been for a long time, with no discernable progress), not working properly with Mozilla is another (you need IE to use it fully in HTML mode). What other options are there?"
"Our business types are full of suggestions for supposedly excellent and well suited systems, however they all have in common that they require Windows on the client. If we choose one of those systems our OSS policy is pretty much moot and OSS has been relegated to (some) servers in the computer room and that's about it. I don't mind running these business functions on a Windows server if that is the best system for the job, but having to run Windows on every client in order to access the data is simply not acceptable.
We want Linux and OpenOffice on every desktop. We want to be able to access customer data from a variety of clients, even including Windows. The same goes for Accounting data, HR data, QA data, you name it. Do we have to write our own system from scratch? I'm not sure that is very realistic."
SQL-Ledger of course ! (Score:5, Informative)
Some things to try (Score:5, Informative)
I'd strongly suggest not to be impressed by eGroupWare [egroupware.org]'s feature list and cute themes (I know WE've been fooled). Seems like these guys, though talented, are not really working towards stabilizing the tree, so you see frightening changelogs - like code rewrites between 1.0RC2 and 1.0RC3. They forked from phpGroupWare [phpgroupware.org] lately but I can't tell if it's a more serious project.
One of my friends is completely sold to the Horde Project [horde.org] so you might want to try it.
All of these will not solve all your issues but no application does and as these three above are open source, you can do the linking as you like.
Look at freshmeat.net (Score:5, Informative)
A common problem I think, not easy to solve (Score:5, Informative)
I think your questions are hard to answer, and even though I have searched a lot for software (not online shopping/CC, we send invoice by mail since we're only doing business inside Norway) I have yet to find anything free and useful.
We've really considered doing it ourselves, making a simpe customer registration and management system with a web frontend. Using f.i. perl modules, you can create Excel documents with tabular data, and such. So that might be a thing to do. If you accept a tiny bit of manual work, that is. Of course, that tiny bit isn't that tiny after you've got hundred customers to bill.
But at least, I know that GnuCash [gnucash.org] has some functions regarding invoicing and customer registry, but I haven't really had the time to try it out. The rest of GnuCash is good, though, so there should be a hope. So far we can keep track of our economy, and if it works, GnuCash might do our customers as well, even generating invoices.
Good luck, and I hope this post will create some feedback for myself as well. Feel free to email me if you want to discuss, by the way.
We use the following: (Score:5, Informative)
For CRM, we use TUTOS [tutos.org].
For accounting, it's SQL-Ledger [sql-ledger.org]. Both the CRM and accounting apps are backed by PostgreSQL [postgresql.org].
For office suites, OpenOffice [openoffice.org].
Web browsing is Mozilla; e-mail is whatever our employees prefer (Mozilla, Kmail, Evolution, Pine, Mutt, whatever...)
We are completely MSFT-free and intend to stay that way.
Accounting Software (Score:4, Informative)
It is a closed source general accounting software, but it runs on Linux, and the clients are linux too.
It takes off where Great Plains Classic left, when it got shut down by microsoft in favor of MS Dynamics, and i think its great, rock solid stuff. (passport, not Dynamics)
Also, it is written in COBOL, and uses ACUCORP's ACUCOBOL runtime, for which you need a license. Finally, ACUCORP provides an ODBC driver that works pretty nicely with PHP for web frontends and reporting, and also runs on Linux.
The only gripe I have, is terminal emulation in Konsole, 'cuz the graphics characters come out as A-umlauts and what have you, and i cant seem to find documentation for that issue anywhere.. suggestions?
Re:Open Source is not CHEAPER (Score:3, Informative)
"Also - what will your customers feel that you have their PRIVATE info on open source processing software???"
umm, do you just completly fail to understand how software works, or are you a moron?
It's not like you can read source, and thus know what the clients private data is. What OS buys you is that you can be sure that the code handles the data properly, and if not you can have it fixed.
If a closed system is mis-handling data, you have no way of finding that out.
SQL-Ledger (Score:4, Informative)
The solution that I found was SQL-Ledger [sql-ledger.com]. While it is overkill for my needs, I think it might fit your criteria quite well.
Re:Because Windows... what? (Score:5, Informative)
The parent should not have been modded flamebait.
Are you running a business to make money, or just to say you used OSS? It seems pretty clear that you don't have a business plan, because if you did, the cost of licensing v. cost of finding something that might work would have become apparent, and you wouldn't have had to ask this question. Forget about technology for a sec, get out your favorite spreadsheet and crunch your finances. Get your priorities in order. Don't make the same mistakes [slashdot.org] my former associates and I did
Quickbooks Pro 2000 was my last Intuit purchase (Score:5, Informative)
That was my last purchase from Intuit. I have removed it from my system and it sits on a shelf.
Not necessarily (Score:5, Informative)
Open for Business (Score:2, Informative)
It's not a complete solution yet. But it has an excellent framework and a quite active group of programmers behind it.
Business reality vs. FOSS idealism. (Score:5, Informative)
You need an accounting system that an auditor from a public firm will write an unqualified opinion on. In general this is going to mean a commercial product -- Solomon, Great Plains, Quickbooks, etc.
You need a payroll system that always works. Flawlessly. Many companies outsource this. Explaining to folks that the
You need a business plan that the investors technical people will sign off on. Betting everything on untried and little-used systems isn't going to get you there.
So for a lot of things: buckle down and do what needs to be done.
For the other 90% -- use open office, linux or bsd desktops, open groupware or even openexchange (suse). There are plenty of Linux/BSD/Apache/whatever storefront systems. Work on it. For the accounting/finance/etc folks -- get a windows terminal server and use rdesktop for those windows apps.
Re:Flamebait or not he's right. (Score:3, Informative)
Hate to rain on your parade, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Open source credit card processing (Score:5, Informative)
Freeside? (Score:5, Informative)
I played with it for a while but the bosses where I work went with anther, Windows-based management system, that has as yet proven too difficult and unstable to actually put into production.
Open for Business Project (Score:2, Informative)
The Open for Business Project [ofbiz.org] sports many features and integrated technologies. Just really impressive stuff, cannot list all the goodies here.
I run an OSS CRM project (Score:5, Informative)
Here is what HERMES offers at the moment:
Web based CRM including appointments and tasks for customers.
Features that should be out within another month or 2 include:
internal communications system (i.e. communications not involving customers)
Interal appointment handling (i.e. appointments not involving customers)
Appointment and task delegation.
In the mid range, I will offer UI independence via SOAP, LDAP, POP3, SMTP, and IMAP.
In the long run, we want to offer most of what you are looking for. Please understand though, that I have been unable to find any open source packages for handling credit card transactions, so you would probably need to pay for an (expensive) license for such a component.
Subscription management etc. is not a problem-- there are OSS solutions that could be modified to do this with a trivial amount of work.
Anyway, Hope this helps.
I have heard good things about SQLledger, but IIRC, it runs on MySQL, which has a nasty habit of truncating large numbers, so I am not sure if I would trust it. It should be easy to port to PostgreSQL though, I would think.
Re:SQL-Ledger of course ! (Score:5, Informative)
And making the bookkeeper do data entry in a web form with no client side scripting to help (ie: for immediate validation, incremental lookup fields, adding rows to data entry tables)? Ugh.
SimpleData (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OPENGROUPWARE ON MAC OS??? ANYONE? (Score:3, Informative)
Some Easy Solutions... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Try a Mix (Score:5, Informative)
Your opinion comes from a demonstrably spurious source.
MySQL and ReiserFS are both made available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. [gnu.org]
The GPL allows people to do absolutely whatever they want with software obtained under it, including using it to run their business in a commercial environment. The GPL does not allow one to distribute the product which was obtained through the GPL in a non-GPLed product, or to distribute products which contain GPLed products under a non-GPL license.
MySQL AB and Hans Reiser make their money by offering alternative commercial licenses which will allow you to distribute the work you derive from their work under a non-GPL license. This only means you have to pay them if you want to release software which links to the code they wrote
Oracle Apps will support Mozilla (Score:4, Informative)
If you use Oracle Applications, you might be interested in Oracle's announcement [eweek.com] that they're going to be supporting Mozilla.
That takes care of half of the problem.
-ez
Karma: Whore (you look at your article scores after posting)
Re:I run an OSS CRM project (Score:5, Informative)
I have heard good things about SQLledger, but IIRC, it runs on MySQL, which has a nasty habit of truncating large numbers, so I am not sure if I would trust it. It should be easy to port to PostgreSQL though, I would think.
SQL-Ledger [sql-ledger.org] does not work with MySQL. It's a high quality project and works great with Postgres. I use and recommend it.
When will some OSS developers get a clue... (Score:5, Informative)
Accounts Receivable/Customer relations
Accounts Payable/Supplier relations
Inventory
Payroll/ HR management
This ain't rocket surgery. It is painfully dull, boring and potentially stupidly lucrative.
As one person I suggested it to said: "Thom, that would be great but involves two things that geeks hate: writing accounting software, and cold calling."
Most businesses that need this desperately are small to medium sized businesses that are currently using a few thousand dollars worth of computer hardware exactly the same way they would use a two hundred dollar typewriter.
When I started where I work, inventory was typed out in MS Word, and printed out once a year, with additions hand written throughout the year. We're currently paying someone several thousand dollars to write an inventory database for us in Filemaker. Why wasn't this done years ago? THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT COULD BE DONE!!! If you want to make a good living, and can write accounting software, cold call businesses in your area, and tell them:
"I can make the computer work the way YOU want it to work, not make you work the way that off the shelf software wants you to work."
You will make the sale, and you can reuse your code on the next project.
Why don't I do it? I have a job I like more, that pays enough to keep me in all the toys I want.
Open Source Not necessary (Score:3, Informative)
What he's ticked about is having to put Windows on every desktop because the client end only works on IE (guh!).
A few things to consider (Score:5, Informative)
We use Quickbooks 2003 for accounting. Works well, fairly easy to use for my non-accounting brain. What I did to accomplish this was to run a Windows 2000 Server basically as a terminal server to allow either one of us to use Quickbooks on our boxes. I had the firewall forwarded so my accountant could get into it as well. They key is not to use the box for anything else, no web browsing, no e-mail, no nothing. Keep it patched, toss on a copy of Symantec antivirus, install the free version of SFU and you can back it up over the network on yer linux box. Seems to be the best way to "Windows-enable" your linux network.
I also run Mozilla mail against SUSE OpenExchange Server with great success and happiness. OpenExchange has an excellent web interface to mail as well as document management (with revision control), knowledgebase, contacts with contact history type functionality, job and project tracking (admittedly difficult to use), and internal instant messaging. Can sync yer Palm to it as well, or toss on Outlook with IMAP if you really have to. It's quite an excellent product and the pricing is quite reasonable considering what it can do. Doesn't need huge system resources either. I run it on dual a PIII-866 with 256MB right now--512MB would be quite sufficient. (swaps a bit with 256)
OpenOffice.Org runs on the SUSE desktops and the PowerBook has genuine MS Office X. She gets into some complex Excel formulas and macros so decided to go MS on that one. I have NO problem recommending OpenOffice.Org to anyone doing office tasks. If you gotta have support, go StarOffice from Sun--just as good, only a few bucks.
I haven't really gotten into any of the PHPProjekt-type wares. Seem to be a lot of functionality, but not much of it done up really well, and much less of it useful in and office setting. That groupware "killer app" is still lurking out there somewhere, if it's not the SUSE product.
Linux on the desktop is definately do-able. I do it here. My wife's old PC with XP crashed a few months ago--bought her the PowerBook and never thought about the Windows box again. All of your major tasks can be done on linux. I have an IBM X31 laptop and SUSE Pro 9.0 support all my hardware, including wireless network card and even some funky IBM stuff. I'm sure RedHat would be fine as well, especially on desktop systems--your preference.
The community will get better with accounting-type programs. I think it will probably still be a few years until something surfaces. The Win 2000 as terminal server should suffice until then, and it's not too expensive.
Good luck in your efforts, let us all know how you end up!
-m
Re:Mozilla Runs on WIndows (Score:2, Informative)
When you have a database that your business depends on, having it not fully suported is not an option.
3 letters: S A P (Score:2, Informative)
* Gives you all the functionality you asked for (and more).
* Server app runs on linux.
* Client UI runs is cross-platform (Java).
It's definitely not free but you said you're willing to pay for the platform..
Running the Enterprise off Windows (Score:2, Informative)
XRMS: Another CRM choice (Score:3, Informative)
I'm actually in the process of installing xrms as a CRM from a support standpoint, not from a sales one. It has a nice user database, a basic ticketing system, and a fairly polished interface for a new app. It was one of the few that spanned both worlds (support vs. sales) with any finesse.
There are several developers involved that are happy to take suggestions and plan out new features.
Re:Quickbooks Pro 2000 was my last Intuit purchase (Score:2, Informative)
I got behind once on a payment to the Intuit card, so WITHOUT my permission (except perhaps in a hastilty clicked-through EULA, but STILL!) the Quickbooks software does a transfer from one of my other credit cards and PAYS ITSELF something like $150.
And I was only 3 weeks late, on probably a $5000 or so debt.
I was schocked. Still am. FUCK INTUIT.
Mixed Environment! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Flamebait or not he's right. (Score:3, Informative)
Any serious SQL based piece of software makes EXTENSIVE use of stored procedures for the simple fact the the stored procedure effectivly sits in a compiled state on the server saving significant time when being run multiple times. As may have become obvious by now MySQL DOESN'T support stored prcedures (or triggers which I could rant on about also). This is no reason in my opinion to claim it MUST run on MS-SQL as I would imagine Postgres would support all the functions it needs.
While MySQL might be good for light DB work, more serious work should be done on a more serious DB package
Re:How much is lack of research costing _you_? (Score:3, Informative)
It was a super nice client until they introduced a bug that can't load the JVM properly.
Until, they fix this, I'll be using Opera.
Re:OSS Software in general.. (Score:-1, Informative)
GnuCash is more comparable to MS Money. That's what it is: a personal finance management tool. It is ideal for personal use, such as managing your day-to-day costs, your stock/bond/whatever investments, student loans (or maybe adult loans
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:OSS Software in general.. (Score:5, Informative)
Has anyone here tried GnuCash?
[Raises hand]
I don't have accounting complicated enough make it worthwhile using accounting software, but I do wonder how it stacks up compared to Quicken
GnuCash is hands down better for a business than Quicken. IMO, it looks much better for business work than Quicken's big brother, QuickBooks. I have some experience setting up QuickBooks and Peachtree accounting systems for mom & pop businesses, and I've run my personal accounting on one version or another of Quickbooks for about 10 years now. I've just changed over to GnuCash at the beginning of the year, as I'm migrating to Linux.
GnuCash is a full-fledged double-entry accounting system with good audit capability (burn a standard General Ledger to CD every end of month, etc), good report features, and by reputation good A/R, A/P, tax, and payroll capabilities (It pleases me that I don't have to explore those myself.) Also by reputation, its customer and vendor tracking is pretty thorough. It also has very good support for online banking and highly regarded multi-currency handling. And since it is GPL, if extensions are needed you could hire a tame programmer to do them (and use the world to beta test his product).
I'd suggest thoroughly exploring GnuCash and using it as a standard to measure other possible accounting systems against. I think it likely that you'd end up choosing GnuCash when all is said and done.
You'd need another database for the non-financial aspects of tending your customers. There are advantages in keeping technical support history, etc, separate from the financial history. At a WAG, I'd bet that one of the Help Desk packages would handle all of the most important parts of this for a VoIP provider. I haven't explored OS Help Desk databases, but I would think there would be some good ones available now.
I think OOo, GnuCash, and some GPL'd Help Desk database would cover most of your software needs. And in Linux, to boot. That will carve your potential licensing and support costs down quite a bit.
Re:OSS Software in general.. (Score:3, Informative)
GnuCash isn't suited for business because it does not really use true double-accounting....Because of that, compared to Quicken it sucks and is totally unusuable for a business.
Please mod parent down into oblivion.
GnuCash is a double entry accounting system.
Quickbooks is a double entry accounting system.
Quicken, though, is a glorified checkbook register program, not an accounting system.
How about OpenMFG? (Score:1, Informative)
HOWEVER, one thing you'll notice is that most OSS or OSS-built software for CRM+Accounting is oriented around the manufacturing industry. There is very little for the service or licensed professional industry. This is becuase in the US, manufacturers have led the adoption of open source and tend to be a lot more DIY about software than other businesses.
You *could* build something yourself, starting with SQL Ledger. I've done this professionally; it will cost about $150,000 and take one to two years. This will give you a system that is custom-tailored to your business, as well as a potential backup line of income when your main VoIP business collapses. But it will most likely play hell with your rollout schedule.
Re:3 letters: S A P (Score:1, Informative)
Having worked on systems of this size SAP/PeopleSoft/Sebiel - I have seen more not work than work - companies don't brag about it because they can't admit that they fucked up that badly.
Smoking gun, emperor with no clothes, kid hidden in the basement, etc that is the reality of big $ ERP/CRM systems.
Huge list of Linux ERP/CRM software (Score:1, Informative)
Use Citrix shared applications (Score:2, Informative)
Set up one Windows server with Citrix Metaframe, install the needed Windows applications and share them seamlessly to the users desktops using Citrix. There is a Citrix ICA client available for Linux and it works well.
This should solve your problems without having to change the user environment to windows.
Re:SQL-Ledger of course ! (Score:5, Informative)
Running a Business on Open Source Software (Score:2, Informative)
We had a related problem, although in a smaller way.
Our core business software requires Windows on client machines and MS SQL Server. Since, the database is SQL, we can query it to extract information directly while sending all inputs through Windows front end client. In order to make the information in the database available to our Linux intranet webserver we built a SOAP layer between the MS SQL Server and webserver.
The SOAP layer consists of a SOAP server, written in Delphi. The SOAP server comprises a core and .dlls that handle requests for different services. A dll can be written to execute specific queries and return the results or provide a generic SQL functionality which is OK for small result sets.
At the webserver end, we use cgi programs, written in Kylix or Python, which call method made avaialble by the SOAP server and its modules. For Kylix, we have a SOAPSQLQuery component that can be used rather like and other Delphi/Kylix dataset components.
This means that we can use information from the database to provide access to information via web browsers on desktops running Windows or Linux.
The SOAP server is now used for all database access, irrespective of the OS of the querying machine, to provide flexibility for the future. For example, Word and a Word add-in that gets name and address info for letters can easily be replaced by OpenOffice on Linux and a Java component because the actual database access is performed by the SOAP server and the SOAP interface is constant and simple to use.
Re:Flamebait or not he's right. (Score:2, Informative)
Cheers