[grib@linuxdevel.com: Survey results?]

[Michael Fair]

> Business Accounting: support invoicing/billing, accounts-payable,
> receivable. However, the results are sort of bizarre: users are not that
> interested in an integrated address-book/contact manager/to-do list. I
> find this is bizarre, since things like billing/invoicing/checkprinting
> is almost useless if you don't have adresses and phone numbers to go
> with your invoice system. And accounts-payable is basically a fancy
> to-do-list, rendered all-the-more useless withough good checkprinting
> (i.e. print address on check) support. So I'm tempted to conclude that
> respondants have little/no actual experience in using a small-business
> accounting package. Indeed, we should filter results for those who have
> actually used peachtree/quickbooks or other business pacakge. 

I am one of the people mentioned above, I have and use PeachTree
to run my computer & network consultancy.  I use PeachTree 
primarily for Address/Contact info and bookkeeping purposes 
to primarily print pretty invoices and keep track of what 
people owe me and what I have paid to people.  You are absolutely 
right about invoicing being useless without addresses and phone 
numbers and stuff, but I read "Integrated address-book/contact 
manager/to-do list" as GNUCash has yet another address-book/contact 
manager/to-do list that is specialized to it and would not be able 
to easily share data with my email program, my palm pilot, backend 
web based end user reporting/authentication system, and eventually
even my phone system (through GNU Bayonne).

The reason I don't care about the contact manager in GNUCash is 
I am looking to Evolution (or some other more generic database)
to keep track of that information and I want to tie several
different applications into that backend.  There are many places 
in business where you would like to create automated scripts/programs 
to pull information from one central contact/informational 
database but can't because every application implements its own
contact database and doesn't make it easy to extend and play 
nicely with other applications that you want to interoperate
with (I have this problem with PeachTree and QuickBooks).  

So rather than make my contact manager conform to my application,
I want to make my applications conform to my contact manager.

For this reason I don't care if GNUCash integrates a contact 
manager because what I really need is for it to be able to 
pull the information relative to it from some other database 
(like an LDAP backend for instance).  I want all my 
applications to have fields associated to customers so that 
I can reduce the amount of duplication of effort I have
to do to keep all the contact information in sync.  Ideally,
I want to change the contact information in any program and
then have all other programs be able to reflect that change.

GNUCash is a financial manager, not a address-book/contact 
manager/to-do list manager, it can certainly use these
services, and in some cases it needs these services, but it
should let the guys who are focused on developing those
kinds of applications do that and request hooks sufficient
to integrate with those backends.

I want to store lots of customized information that has 
nothing to do with standard contact information, and I 
am going to request from the address-book/contact 
manager/to-do list guys that I want to store other kinds
of metadata that they can't even forsee to help me do 
business with my customers (for instance one immediate
use for each of my customers is going to be storing:
account names/passwords/server addresses/IP settings/
phone numbers for technical support for the phone company
and ISP they use/pictures/godonlyknowswhatelseIwanttoknow, 
so my customers do not need to have that information and
I can offer them a very customized and personalized service).   

I want to be able to have a history of what past values 
fields have been so in the event things don't get 
updated properly I can match values and know why things 
may be as screwed up as they are.  GNUCash isn't going 
to be the program for all that for me, and they shouldn't 
be. GNUCash isn't designed as that kind of application, 
but it can certainly use the services from the kind 
of application that is designed to do all that.

The part of the backend system that I want GNUCash to 
fill is my kick ass bookkeeping/invoincing/budgeting/
financial reporting tool.  

Oh, and about check writing, I write checks out by hand 
right now, that's fine for me.  I don't really feel the 
need to go out and buy checks that I can print from my 
computer yet because the volume doesn't justify that.  
Right now I would rather you focus on the things I marked 
so I can begin to migrate my business to GNUCash and ditch 
PeachTree so I can begin building that backend information
storage system I've been dreaming of.  Sure check printing
would be nice.  There is even one guy who did a decent
enough job so as believed to be usable, but I don't 
_need_ that to run my business.  What I need is 
invoicing/billing, accounts-payable/receivable.  Once
I get that, then having GNUCash be able to help me with:
- POS transactions, field expenses (like integration with 
    a custom Palm Pilot App),
- job tracking (work done/money spent on a job so far 
    for jobs that take a long time)
- job prospecting would be nice, but probably belongs
    in the contact manager/calandering program I use.

When I start writing fifty checks or more a month, then
I'll want check printing from GNUCash.  On a side note,
my bank currently offers on-line bill pay, and I use a 
credit card for many transactions instead of checks,
plus I have an ATM/check card.  The only time I would 
need to write checks are for services that need payment 
immediately, that I don't want to use cash for, and don't 
accept any of the automated systems above.  Having 
GNUCash help me accept credit card transactions, ATM
transactions/check cards, and other services would
be nice, however these usually require some kind of
other financial obligation to go with them that I am
not interested in using at the moment (Merchant Account,
POS hardware).  I am certainly not going to complain
if GNUCash integrates these features, and I certainly
hope they will, but I have other solutions to these
needs right now, and my requests reflect more what 
my immediate assumptions are for how I will be using 
GNUCash and not my overall dream come true for what
GNUCash will one day be.

I'm a small business not an enterprise.  I don't want
or need lots of advanced features as they tend to get
in my way because I am not sophisticated enough to be
able to use them.  For instance, with all the other 
automated services available to me, not even including 
bank transfers and money wires, I only write between 
4 and 10 checks a month.  My other expenses I pay for
with other means, and remember, I have to deal with
accepted and receiving money more than I have to deal
with how I can spend it.  My purpose is income not
easy expenditures.

This is just one man's opinion.  I am a sole proprietor.
I am not even close to being able to consider hiring an
assistant at this time.  I offer technical services on
computers and networks to help businesses stream line
their processes.  I would like to start putting Linux
systems into my clients businesses and have started
designing an expensive, yet robust, server to help meet
their needs.  At the time I took the survey I didn't
even think about my clients needs, I was just thinking
about mine.  That would increase the usefulness of a
GNUCash frontend on Windows and Macintosh for talking
to a GNUCash server running on Linux.

I would like to change my vote about the Windows/Macintosh
version to say that I would like to use a Windows and 
Macintosh based frontend that spoke to a server running 
on either the same or Linux.

I hope that helps clarify at least my responses to
the survey.

-- Michael --