How to setup Gnucash as a business software?

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Fri Jun 6 08:15:13 EDT 2014


Hi Allan,

Welcome to GnuCash. I'll add some replies to your enquiries in between below.

On Wednesday 04 June 2014 16:35:38 Allan Mwenda wrote:
> Hey guys and gals,I just installed the software recently and am still
> learning my way around it so please bare with me. I am planning to
> start a business which is a store and i would like to have good
> accounting systems from the get go,and also be professional in my
> documentation. I chose Gnucash because it looks like it can do what i
> need,without having to license anything at a high fee.
> So what I would like to be able to do is hopefully
> Be able to accept purchase orders from corporate clients,and generate
> quotations,statements,invoices,delivery notes and such other
> documentation of formal transactions along the way.

Of these GnuCash only supports invoices. You could bend this a bit and consider a draft invoice 
to be a quotation.

I'm not sure what you mean with "statements". If you mean bank statements, GnuCash would 
allow you to reconcile your bank account against a bank statement. If you instead mean a 
report of amounts due by your customers, there is a report that can show you this. If you mean 
still something else feel free to elaborate on that.

> Keep a payroll for the 4 of us,to keep out of company money and
> instead earn salaries.
There's no real payroll feature in GnuCash. Depending on the level of detail you need you 
could consider the 4 of you as vendors to your own company and treat your salaries as bills. 
Alternatively you could always manually enter all payroll details in the appropriate accounts.  
But that will require a bit more work and some creativity to track payroll payments.

> Purchase stock in USD in South Africa but sell it in KSH in Kenya

Unfortunately GnuCash doesn't have an inventory system either. So you can do this but it will 
require manual entry in the proper accounts. I also don't know what amount of reporting you 
need and will be possible in this way.

> Follow spending in the office,perhaps a petty cash system.

I don't know exactly what a petty cash system is. You can enter all vendor invoices in the 
business part of gnucash. That will allow you to track your expenses and plan your payments.

> Be able to calculate selling price and profit after importing
> goods,and also be able to set discounts on the sale price when there
> is a promotion,without it being a loss price.

Sorry, there are no facilities to handle pricing simply because there is no stock management.

I'd suggest to manage your inventory in a separate system and only keep a summary in 
GnuCash (like monthly stock movements or something).

> Do my taxes off the software,or at least generate the figures i need

That should be possible, provided you enter everything in the proper accounts.

> Keep the required level of books for a limited company,as that is what
> i will set up.
I can't answer this as I'm not a qualified accountant. Moreover you didn't specify your country 
so whether or not GnuCash will suffice for this largely depends on the laws of your country.

> Probably keep accounts of corporate clients and my distributors,with
> history and such,for reference
No problem. This can be achieved by using the business features for all invoicing/billing.

> A way to keep track of company debt and loans
> 
Sure. There is even a loan calculator and you can set up a mortgage that automatically inserts 
the periodical payments. Unfortunately not one bank uses the same interest calculation so the 
mortgage wizard is useful only as a guide in my opinion.

> I am not an accountant,but I believe if I figure out where everything
> goes it's just math in the end,and I learn fairly quickly.Is any of
> this possible or am I asking too much? Thank you.

Everything is just maths indeed. And strict double-entry accounting. If you learn which 
transactions affect which accounts, you can manage your business just fine in GnuCash.

Good luck !

Geert


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