Project management; User documentation; main website; accounting standards

[Reid]

Hi

 

I didn't know who to write to about:

 

-          Project management of the project, specially management of scope

-          User documentation

-          The main website - the first page

 

(I've also added some notes about accounting standards at the end, in case
that info is a help)

 

I initially tried mailman at gnucash.org but (s)he recommended that I should
subscribe to gnucash-user and post this there.  Including a substantive
change proposal would be even better (I don't know and cannot find out on
the GnuCash site how to do that).

 

So I'm sending my comments only here.

 

I'm sorry to say that also I can't help further than the feedback I'm giving
here - I've already spent more time than I would like on it - I've other
things that I'd prefer to spend my time on.

 

Sorry to say that these are entirely criticisms - and it's not fun
criticizing people who are doing the work voluntary.  But I either say
nothing, or I say something that I hope will be taken in the spirit it's
intended - ie to help improve and get it right.

 

So who am I to say all this: my comments are based on experience (I'm now
retired) as an engineer, as an accountant (to divisional financial
controller of a multi-national), and as both a line manager and project
manager, and management consultant with a successful UK consultancy, working
in multi-nationals at board level and with major business improvement IT
based projects.  I've used computers throughout my career

 

I delved into GnuCash a year ago, and I've just done so again (I need a
low-cost accounting package for home use, but a package that has correct and
effective implementation of multi-currency accounting.  But I'm now giving
up on GnuCash - it doesn't seem mature enough, although I'm pretty sure that
it can meet my accounting requirements.   

 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

I can find any reference to it.  It should have a separate section on the
website giving project management information etc etc.

 

A part of project management is project scope.  Has the scope been defined,
and if so how?  It should be published under the project management part of
the website.

 

Have the target users been defined (should be part of scope definition).

 

My intuition is that the scope hasn't been defined, or if it has it's not
being controlled.  Whether or not it has been, it should (I think) be
defined by stating the accounting processes that it will, and will not, be
included, and why.  Does the scope include training people in accountancy
(that's what the concepts guide seems to be doing)?  If so, why?  (See also
below under documentation.)

 

Also about scope: I was looking at multi-curency in GnuCash which then got
me into thinking about the scope of GnuCash (what businesses is it intended
to support [small business isn't an adequate definition]), and that related
to foreign currency.  For example, accounting for foreign currency is much
simpler if the business does not have foreign subsidiaries.

 

I think that the scope should be defined precisely (in terms of businesses)
so that the scope can then be defined precisely in terms of accounting
processes that GnuCash has to support.  (Or maybe do it the other way round
- specify which accounting processes GnuCash is going to support (and which
not)).  Include the info in the scope and in the user documentation.

 

What about quality assurance?  Doesn't seem that there is any (I'm referring
only [I haven't looked elsewhere] to the user documentation which is
inconsistent in its content and having comments like 'is left for you to
ponder upon' is poor. 

 

DOCUMENTATION

User documentation - where are the standards for user docs?  I can't find
them; are there any?  There needs to be a standard specifically for GnuCash
user documentation.

 

The GnuCash tutorial and concepts guide isn't good.  The first part about
accounting equations etc is not satisfactory - there's no mention of
important basic accounting concepts: the accrual concept; the matching
principle.  The concepts parts of each section are poor.  For a start
there's no linking back to the basic accounting concepts that are stated at
the beginning.  There's no mention of cash accounting (ie like a home user
might use) and following accounting principles like the accrual and matching
principles that all but the smallest businesses would use.

 

But I really don't see why you are including anything on accounting
principles and all that - ie providing some sort of training in accountancy.
There are plenty of good books and online sites that are much, much better
(in a different league).  For example
http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/Default.htm.   I therefore recommend
that you eliminate all that.from the user documentation

 

My recommendations for improvement of the user guide are:

 

Each section should be called something similar to the title used in the
accounting standards (For example, instead of 'multi-currency' [and using
wording from IAS21], I'd use 'Accounting for the Effects of Changes in
Foreign Exchange Rates' (and not use terminology of 'currency trading').

 

After that I think you should have two parts

- One part that states what accounting rules Gnuash follows (so that anybody
wondering about GnuCash can get confidence that it accounts correctly for
the item covered by the section

- One part that explains how GnuCash is designed for, and carries out,
processing the particular item - so that (potential) users see that GnuCash
deals with the item effectively (rather than for example the user having
manually to carry out the transactions)

 

You may want then to have a third part that details how the user uses
GnuCash to do the processing for that item (or to have that in a separate
document).

 

WEBSITE

The front page is bad - a complete mix of stuff.  A complete put-off for
potential users.  The front page should be top level and have only a brief
introduction and then have tabs (or however you prefer to do it) to (at
least) the following separate parts:

- a section for people who want to use GnuCash (which would include
introduction, documentation, download etc (only for the stable version)

- a section on development

- a section on project management.

 

ACCOUNTING STANDARDS

(Note - I'm based in UK.)

I don't know anything about how much the GnuCash project knows about current
and developing accounting standards - the project should of course be
absolutely up-to-date.  But, being out-of-date myself, I did a bit of
digging to get myself in touch again and I found the following links that I
found useful and I'm including them here (rather than not) in case they are
useful to the project:

 

About international accounting standards

http://www.ifrs.org/The+organisation/IASCF+and+IASB.htm

http://www.iasplus.com/standard/standard.htm

 

About international accounting standards and country acceptance or use

http://www.iasplus.com/country/useias.htm

 

About international accounting standards and the US

http://www.pwc.com/us/en/issues/ifrs-reporting/publications/ifrs-and-us-gaap
-similarities-and-differences-september-2010.jhtml

You can download from this site a document on 'IFRS and US GAAP:
similarities and differences'

 

Source of all International Accounting Standards

http://www.ifrs.org/IFRSs/IFRs.htm (you need to register).  Anybody can
register and get all the standards (but it costs to have access to the full
range of documents).

 

Regards

 

Reid