LedgerSMB – Open Source Accounting Software

Posted on August 30, 2008 by philoakley

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LedgerSMB is web based Open Source Accounting Software. LedgerSMB is a fork of the popular SQL-Ledger which was described by FLOSBUS here. The Fork came about after a disagreement over security and further more detailed information is available on the internet including here.

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LedgerSMB has quite a few aims but initially they have looked to address the security issue and to generally tidy up the code. In the longer term the LedgerSMB team plan to rewrite the original code module by module. A roadmap is available on their website here.

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Many users and partners of SQL-Ledger have now moved on to LedgerSMB. Although today the functionality between the two is comparable the future many be more secure for users with Ledgersmb.

As mentioned as of today functionality is vert similar to SQL-Ledger. As well as all of the functionality you would expect from an accounting system including all of the main ledgers LedgerSMB also has POS (Point of sale) time cards and HR (employee records).

LedgerSMB can deal with multi-currency accounting and exchange rates for mult-companies and multi users. There are multiple language translations available and LedgerSMB and be configured to deal with different countries tax regimes.

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Summary

Current version 1.2.15 (August 2008)

Platform
Installation Mac, Windows, Linux (Debian) and FreeBSD
All GUI Browsers

Database

PostgreSQL 8.1 or 8.2 receommended (8.3 is not yet supported)

Other Requirements

Web server (Apache,
thttpd 2.22+,
boa, AOL server)

Perl 5+

Well known Users/Case Studies

Not aware of any published

Propiertory Accounts Software Competitors

Quickbooks, Sage Line 50

Useful Links
Site http://www.ledgersmb.org/
Documentation http://www.ledgersmb.org/manual
Forum http://www.nabble.com/Ledger-SMB-f21334.html

Posted in Accounts Software, ERP, Open Source | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Wiki Links for FLOSS Business Software

Posted on July 29, 2008 by philoakley

Wikipedia logoGood documentation can separate great software from good software. Documentation is an area where open source often beats proprietary solutions hands down. Often up to date and user friendly documentation for proprietary software does not exist, is not available or is restricted by software vendors or resellers for commercial gain.

Many, but not all, open source solutions have a far more open and collaborative approach to documentation recently highlighted by Compiere’s launch of their wiki.

The definition of a wiki aptly taken from Wikipedia, which of course is the most well know wiki, is as follows:

“A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.”

Wiki WednesdayWiki Wednesday’s is a group of people who are interested in Wiki’s and social media. The next London meeting is on 13th August details here.

A have put a list of links to some of the most well know FLOSS business software wiki’s below but of course there are many more.

MediaWikiThere is no shortage of open source wiki software and MediaWiki is the software used and developed for Wikipedia is open source under the GPL. Of the above wiki’s SugarCRM, Alfresco and Openbravo all use Wikimedia.

Posted in Open Source | Tagged , | Leave a comment

SugarCRM CEO John Roberts on Floss Weekly Podcast

Posted on July 16, 2008 by philoakley

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Floss Weekly is an excellent podcast from The Twit Network and Leo Laporte. Originally co-hosted with Chris DiBona it is now hosted with Randal Shwartz. It covers many different projects from the world of Free Libre Open Source Software but not usually open source business applications for enterprises. Until this week when it had John Roberts the CEO of SugarCRM talking about the Open Source version of SugarCRM. Well worth a listen for anyone interested in SugarCRM or commercial open source business software in general. Link to the podcast here

Posted in CRM, Open Source | Leave a comment

Interview with Openbravo CEO Manel Sarasa

Posted on July 3, 2008 by philoakley

Open Source ERP GuruThe Open Source ERP Guru is a fantastic blog covering many Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning applications including Openbravo, OpenERP and Compiere.

The sight is great for beginners and experts alike. As well as having statistics and tutorials the blog has now started doing podcast interviews with CEO’s of the leading Open Source ERP companies. The latest podcast is with Manel Sarasa the CEO of Openbravo the new poster child of Open Source ERP. The link to the podcast can be found on the Open Source ERP Guru’s Blog post here. Well worth a listen to hear where the company is going.

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Posted in Accounts Software, ERP, Open Source | Leave a comment

OpenBravo – Open Source ERP

Posted on March 2, 2008 by philoakley

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Openbravo is an open source Enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. Openbravo is based on the well know open source ERP software Compiere One of the big differences between Compiere and Openbravo is that Openbravo has a 100% web based user interface.

Openbravo is ERP aimed at SME’s (Small to Medium Enterprises) and divides its functionality into the following areas:

Master Data Management
Procurement Management
Warehouse Management
Project and Service Management
Sales management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Financial Management
Business Intelligence (BI)

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A virtual appliance is available here for the Vmware player and the Citrix owned open source xen hypervisor for Linux.

THe virtual appliance runs as a virtual server allowing you to connect your local browser to Openbravo and is very impressive.

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Summary

Current Version
2.35

Platform
Server Installation – Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris
Database Oracle PostgreSQL
Client – Web based so Browsers – Firefox, SeaMonkey, epiphany and Internet Explorer

License
Openbravo Public License, based on the Mozilla Public License

Well known Users/Case Studies
Some case study details in the following presentation. Other presentations are available at slideshare.

Open Source Alternatives
Compiere, TinyERP

Proprietary ERP Competitors
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics

Posted in Accounts Software, CRM, ERP, Open Source | Leave a comment

JasperSoft – Open Source Business Intelligence

Posted on June 27, 2006 by philoakley

JasperSoft

Jaspersoft is open source business intelligence software. JasperSoft has a suite of business intelligence products which is called JasperIntelligence. JasperIntelligence is a business intelligence platform which provides a web services based environment for reporting, data analysis (OLAP) and data integration. The core product is JasperReports there is also JasperServer, iReports for JasperReports, JasperAnalysis and JasperETL, all of these are briefly described below:

JasperReports

JasperReports is a java reporting library. JasperReports can create reports from 3rd party applications (e.g. SugarCRM), relational databases or data marts. Output Formats include PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV, RTF (Word), TXT and XML files. Microsoft Excel can be used to further manipulate the data if required. Charts can be also be created with full drill down capabilities

JasperReports

JasperServer

JasperServer is a report server that can automate the delivery of reports on an on-demand or scheduled basis. It also allows access, through a web browser interface, to non technical users for browsing and editing reports via Jasper reports and integrated visual design tools.

iReport Designer for JasperReports

iReport is a visual reporting tool based on JasperReports written in 100% pure java. You can manage charts, images, subreports etc.It supports output in PDF,RTF,XML,XLS,CSV,HTM. IReport can be downloaded from the JasperSoft website or from Sourceforge.

iReport
There are also two other Jasper products planned, these are

JasperAnalysis – OLAP functionality to deliver (Excel) pivot style (slice and dice) reporting that can be delivered to non technical users through a web interface

JasperETL (Extract, Transform, Load) – is a data integration tool and will allow multiple data sources to be merged so a report can be run on the combined information.

For Demonstration purposes there is a virtual JasperReports setup Using VMware available here, this includes SugarCRM data as an example. Jasperforge is the open source community website but it is still under development but will hopefully be a good resource. There is also a sourceforge homepage.

Integration to other packages

Summary

Current Version
Jasper Reports 1.2.4

Platform
Web Client/Browser Firefox (all platforms Windows, Apple Mac and Linux), Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator

Server Installation – Windows 2000/2003, Linux (Solaris and BSD). Mac OSX should also work

Application Server: Tomcat,. BEA Weblogic, IBM Websphere

License

GNU Public License (GPL)

Well known Users/Case Studies
Case Studies

Commercial Product/Support

Yes, JasperDecisions

Proprietary ERP Competitors
Business Objects, SAS, Oracle, IBM, Cognos

Powered by Qumana

Posted in Business Intelligence, Open Source, Reporting | Leave a comment

SugarCRM launches SugarExchange – The SugarCRM Marketplace

Posted on June 27, 2006 by philoakley

sugarexchange

SugarCRM has just launched SugarExchange beta. Sugar Exchange is a market place for SugarCRM Extensions. This would appear a response to Salesforce.com’s Appexchange a marketplace of applications that integrate to Salesforce’s CRM.

Extensions range from themes to integration to other software (Jasper Reports, Alfresco) and functionality not included un the standard product. Extensions can be sorted by which SugarCRM version they are for both commercial and open source. Although the site can promote commercial extensions that you would need to pay for. the majority of the downloads appear free and open source.

Currently the offering is very similar to Sugarforge the open source community pages for SugarCRM. SugarCRM has so many different websites that they have another website describing each one, this can be found out SugarNET.

One of the most popular extensions is the integration with Jaspersoft’s Jasper Reports. Jasper Reports comes with a suite of reports that can be run against your SugarCRM data and allows users to write their own reports. Also according to the press release there will be a joint webcast :

JasperSoft and SugarCRM will be hosting a joint webcast, “Turning Data into Decisions,” at 10:00 a.m. PDT on June 29, 2006. Barry Klawans, JasperSoft CTO and Lars Nordwall, SugarCRM VP of Worldwide Sales, will present and demonstrate the JasperSoft for SugarCRM solution. Register for the event at https://jaspersoft.webex.com/ec0502l/eventcenter/frame/g.do?siteurl=jaspersoft &t=a&d=333195357.

Posted in Business Intelligence, CRM, Integration, Open Source, Reporting | Leave a comment

Compiere – Open Source ERP and CRM

Posted on June 24, 2006 by philoakley

Compiere is open source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Compiere ERP includes all of the core elements that many small to medium size business and organisations require including:

  • Accounting
  • Point of Sale
  • Distribution and Inventory/Stock
  • E-commerce
  • Workflow
  • Partner Relations Management
  • Supply Chain Management

Traditionally ERP includes Manufacturing or Material Requirements Planning (MRP). Manufacturing is not currently included in the core package and is planned for the future but a manufacturing module is available from an independent project CMPCS.

Compiere has two ways of using the software the traditional windows (fat client) interface (see below) and a web interface for a remote or hosted solution. Currently not all functionality is available through the web interface but both can be used in conjunction. Very few solutions have this functionality and it could deliver the best of both worlds.

Compiere Screenshot

Compiere is a Java solution (which installs with JBoss) and is designed to run on an Oracle database. There has been some complaints from the open source
community as the Oracle database is not open source and can be quite
expensive (it is included if you take a Compiere support contract). Compiere
has recently released a database kit so it can be ported across to
other databases, there are projects for both mySQL and PostgreSQL. Compiere
plan to add support for the Apache Derby database in July 2006 followed
sometime by Microsoft SQL Server and IBM’s DB2 support. Although not open source there are free versions (with some limitations) of Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2.

Installing Compiere can be quite difficult but there are other options available. Firstly there is a full virtual setup for VMware with Compiere installed and configured available from IKU a German Compiere partner. The image includes Ubuntu Linux and is in German but you can change the language. Also there is CODAF COmpiere and DAFodil database, a commercial setup which states a 5 minute install time. The first 30 days are free.

Compiere had a list of multi’s

* Multi-Language for Documents and User Interface

* Multi-Currency for transacting or reporting foreign currencies

* Multi-Tax supporting different tax systems (Sales, VAT, and combinations)

* Multi-Costing in parallel (e.g. Standard Costing, Average, Lifo, …)

* Multi-Accounting for your legal reporting using different accounting
principles (e.g. Cash/Accrual, International/US/German/.. GAAP)

* Multi-Organization for different branches/outlets and/or legal entities

Compiere is one of the most popular Open Source ERP systems and according to Jorg Janke, Compiere founder and president “Our software has been downloaded more than a million times”. It has also just raised $6 million of venture capital
allowing it to move from Portland, Oregon, to California’s Bay Area and
to further develop the software particularly its manufacturing and CRM
capabilities.

There are currently 43 projects on Sourceforge which are related to to Compiere
from integration into other software such as Jasper Reports (business
Intelligence) to additional modules including Human Resources and Fixed
Assets. There are also projects to use other databases including the open source databases PostgreSQL and mySQL.

Summary

Current Version
2.5.3b

Platform
Installation – Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris and Mac OS

License
Compiere Public License (based on the Mozilla Public License)

Well known Users/Case Studies
Case Studies

Proprietary ERP Competitors
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics

Posted in CRM, ERP, Open Source | 6 Comments

Alfresco – Open Source Enterprise Content Management

Posted on June 20, 2006 by philoakley

Alfresco is open source Enterprise Content Management (ECM). Enterprise Content Management is different to the many open source Content Management System’s (CMS) such as Drupal or Joomla. ECM is described by Wikipedia as

“software that enables organizations to create/capture, manage/secure, store/retain/destroy, publish/distribute, search, personalize, and present/view/print digital content such as pictures/images, text, reports, video, audio,
transactional data, catalog, code”

or put more simply “ECM systems primarily focus on the capture, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of digital files for enterprise use and their life-cycle management”.
While Content Management Systems (CMS) as mentioned above normally concentrate on managing web content often for community sites allowing members to collaborate.

Alfresco allows you to track documents (for example word documents) and view them. Documents can be grouped and viewed in a manner which is sensible to the users rather than just a flat file structure (as in Windows explorer). Alfresco assists collaboration on documents by multiple people and teams introducing version tracking and workflow. Remote access to documents is available though a web portal.

Alfresco includes Common Internet File System Interface (CIFS) that provides Microsoft Windows file system compatibility this means that for an end user files can be accessed through the standard Windows explorer menu allowing a completely familiar interface, even allowing
Microsoft Briefcase to synchronise files. While the user accesses the file in the usual way the Alfresco rules-engine automatically processes the document updates for version control, workflow, transformation, meta data assignment, web publishing, records management, and more which can be controlled through a web portal interface. The system includes an out of the box portal solution to simplify the development of enterprise and departmental portals.

There are three versions of Alfresco available:

  • Community for Developers and Technical Enthusiasts for Non-Critical Environments
  • Small Business for Small Enterprises, Departments in Global 2000 Organizations or Not-For-Profits
  • Enterprise for Major Corporations, Governments and Not-For-Profits

All versions are 100% open source.

Alfresco is looking to be compliant with the latest standards and its repository is currently JSR-170 compliant.

There are many ways to have a look at Alfresco, for Windows there is a full installer that will install all of the required components including mySQL and Tomcat, if you do not want to install directly onto your machine you can download a virtual setup for Vmware and there are also
online versions to trial from the Alfresco website.

Possibilities for Alfresco are endless and different projects are already appearing including Tyfresco a project to integrate to SugarCRM as well as other software, a Firefox extension and a partnership with Filemark a leading provider of document processing.

Summary

Platform
Installation – Windows, MacOS, Linux (Solaris and BSD should also work)

Database – any database supported by Hibernate, including MySQL, Oracle Microsoft SQL Server.

Application Server: Tomcat, JBoss. BEA Weblogic, Sun Java System
Application Server, IBM webserver and IBM Webserver Community Edition
Browsers – Firefox (all platforms Windows, Apple Mac and Linux), Microsoft Internet Explorer

The Alfresco system is developed using the latest Java technologies including JBoss 4.0, JBoss Portal 2.0, Spring 1.2, Hibernate 3.0, MyFaces 1.0, Lucene 1.4 and J2SE 5.0.


Well known Users/Case Studies
Boice, Informa, Reed, Case Studies

Proprietary CRM Competitors

Documentum, IBM, Filenet, Interwoven, Vignette, and Microsoft Sharepoint

Posted in Document Management, Open Source | 1 Comment

Jitterbit – Open Source Integration Software

Posted on June 18, 2006 by philoakley

Jitterbit have just recently come out of beta testing and have launched version 1.0. Jitterbit is open source integration software allowing you to, for example ,integrate you CRM (Customer Relationship Management) with your ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning).
Integration is one of the biggest benefits of modern systems but it is still one of the biggest problems in proprietary software. Integration should be easier with Open Source software due to the use of open standards and all information about the software being available but this still requires someone with a good technical knowledge.

Jitterbit is attempting to make integration easier by having predefined integration solutions for existing software called Jitterpacks. So far there are Jitterpaks for Amazon Web Services, Salesforce.com and SugarCRM. This saves everyone re-inventing the wheel. If they have not got a Jitterpak that you require you could write one yourself and submit it to the Jitterbit community.

Jitterbit has also announced a partnership with OpenMFG so we should be seeing a Jitterpak for their open source ERP software soon.

Posted in Integration, Open Source | 1 Comment