audit recommendation - dump gnucash??

[Rufus]

Novack and Liz ("history") hit the nail. This is a business matter
affecting your organization in a big way. You must treat it as such
especially because it goes right to the top.

"Business matter" does not mean smart, reasonable, logical, legal,
moral, patriotic or anything else like that. Though you should bring all
that stuff to bear in ways that help you get what you have decided you
want. "Business" means the ongoing agenda to gain advantage to reap
profits and arrange that others pay all your costs. The accounting firm
which made the report has taken the win/win opportunity to gain more
control and maybe make life easier for itself while at the same time
setting up a golden justification that any future problems have nothing
to do them and "they told you...". This is normal business behavior.

The _actual_ merits of GC matter only peripherally here because the
"business" decisions involve PERCEIVED profit and loss (in $$$,
prestige, career prospects, personal power, etc) to the decision makers.
Prestige, hope, fear, and CYA generally rule (especially the latter) so
address the decision makers always with those concerns in mind. Speak to
_them_ in their language as much as possible. They care about _their_
issues, not yours.

If  you "believe in" GC, you have some ammunition you can bring to bear.

- your growth and successful use of GC
- the absence of any "fix guarantee" in most vendor contracts

You can generate more:

- successful and ongoing use of GC by entities which your donor
respects; you dig, looking for things like what _other_ accountants does
the donor use successfully and what do _they_ think of GC; what other
entities or areas business is your donor familiar with or has heard of
which use GC

- problems with standard accounting packages; cost being one of the big
ones, but there are doubtless others

- the use of community based software by almost all the financial
institutions in the world (ie. the innuendo against community software
that the accounting firm is deploying is a false representation)

This type of game is based almost purely on whose name you can bring to
bear rather than "what you know". Point to people, institutions and
facts (in that order, probably) which your donor is familiar with and
respects that support your choice and commitment to GC.

Rufus