[GNC] GNU Cash on a Central Computer

[Liz Dodd]

On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 07:10:15 +1000
Nelson Handcock <nelson.handcock at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have my gnucash file saved in a Dropbox account. Multiple people can
> access the file so long as they have the Dropbox account credentials.
> 
> Gnucash generates a LCK file when the main file is opened, so another
> person trying to open the file at the same time as someone else will
> see a warning error saying that a lock can't be established.
> 
> Regards, etc
> 
> On Fri., 4 Dec. 2020, 06:59 Terry Simon, <simon at inloop.tv> wrote:
> 
> > I currently use QuickBooks for business accounting software. Never
> > liked it and am in the process of replacing our server. We have a 5
> > year old version that is no longer supported so if there’s a
> > problem migrating the program we’re out of luck. I would like a
> > simpler program. QuickBooks is too much and too little. The
> > question about GNU Cash is can it be installed on workstations that
> > work from a central file. We only have 3 users that all do
> > different tasks so conflicting data entry won’t be an issue.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Terry L Simon


Nelson provides the standard answer. However there are alternate ways
of working which would make the system usable.

If each of those three people had their subset of the books as "their"
Gnucash file, they could work as they needed without concern for others 
except for the time when the senior person is taking the totals and
transferring data into the comprehensive set of data. One regular
contributor can explain this better than I can.

I am not aware that data from QuickBooks can be imported into Gnucash. 
One way of dealing with this is to use both sets of books in parallel
while you learn how to make the new program work for you, and at the
end of a financial period close off QuickBooks and then just continue
with Gnucash.

Please ask more questions to help you decide if GnuCash is for you and
your company.

Liz