THIS IS A DRAFT; State of the GnuCash project, part II: What can YOU do to help?

Michael Hall ninti at ninti.com
Tue Nov 4 13:54:40 CST 2003


G'day All:

I recently volunteered to do some very basic customisation of XML default
account files to suit Australian conditions.

Before I proceed with contributing to the GnuCash project, I would like to
determine if there is any likelihood of modules or whatever being developed to
handle GST/VAT type taxes in a straight forward manner (no splits, etc). Is
anyone working on this area at the moment?

Otherwise, GnuCash simply can't satisfy the needs of 99% of Australian small
business users, most of whom are neither accountants nor hackers. 

I am really keen to include GST-friendly accounting in a Linux desktop package
for small business - it is the ONLY critical thing at this stage preventing many
small businesses from adopting Linux desktops.

I would like a solution within say six months ... if I could write C and Scheme
i would start myself today. I would certainly be willing to help in whatever way
possible on such a project. 

However, I CAN program in a web environment (PHP,Perl,Python). So it seems to me
that I may be best off putting my effort into customising SQL-Ledger, which
already handles GST to some extent. It would of course have to run on a web
server, but there are as many advantages as disadvantages in that approach.

I would appreciate any comments re where GnuCash is going with GST, because
other than its lack of direct support for GST, GnuCash is a great product. It's
funny, I have consistently avoided anything related to finance and accounting
all my life, but now see it as the number one priority to advance the uptake of
Linux in small business and the wider community.

Mick

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Michael Hall
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