Hi all,I have been working for a while on a Java implementation based on SQL- Ledger. It's not finished yet but it does do a lot of things. I wanted to see if there was some way that we could collaborate.
Originally, I was looking for an accounting system to replace our mish-mash of Java code for the web store, Excel spreadsheets for reporting and Quicken Home and Business (don't laugh) for the ultimate recording, balancing, etc. We do business in both the US and Japan and multiple currency support and the ability to integrate with our online shop (so that we don't have to manually enter all the transactions again) were key features for me. Being able to keep the business from being dependent on a Windows system was also a plus. When I looked around for systems that I could use and afford SQl- Ledger looked like the best bet. I installed it, did a few transactions, it looked reasonable. I started trying to figure out how to integrate it with the web store and ran into the (lack) of documentation. I sent Dieter some money and got his manual and it was quite unhelpful. When I finally did figure out his solution for getting SQL-Ledger to post an invoice automatically (if I remember right it involves generating the equivalent of the HTML post that comes back from the sales order form) I gagged. I'm primarily a Java hack, the database schema didn't look too bad and so I started writing some classes that would let me smack sales orders/invoices into the database. One thing led to another and I found myself painting the whole house and wound up with a pretty sizable portion of SQL-Ledger implemented in Java and once I had that, well, heck, making a Swing UI to the thing seemed pretty logical.
Since Dieter seemed to be pretty hostile to anyone asking questions or doing anything with his system I was going to wait until it was more finished before announcing it since it didn't look like I would get any help/advice on the development. But, now that Ledger-SMB is going it looks more worthwhile to toss it out.
Here's what I have so far: Core code: Compatible with SQL-Ledger 2.6 on Postgresql JDBC->Java object mapping Chart of accounts AR/AP/GL Invoices, sales orders, bills, payments Vendors Parts Customers Swing UI: Create new parts, new sales orders, new vendors, new customers List parts List sales orders Show chart of accountList transactions in accounts (doesn't let you change/enter transactions yet)
QIF file import: QIF file format Java implementation QIF file importation into SQL-Ledger 2.6 databaseMost of this stuff works but is still in a pre-alpha state. The project got backburnered for a while so that I could finish and release other, paying projects but the pain of the lack of an accounting system has gotten strong enough to bring this back to the top of my project list. I am currently in the process of transitioning my company from Quicken Home & Business over to this so I expect the parts that we use to mature rapidly. My plan has been to release this as GPL'd code but I haven't done so yet, mainly just out of lack of time to put GPL notices in the software and get things checked into Sourceforge. I created a Sourceforge project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ledgerdemain/) for it but have never really had time to get it going as an Open Source project.
So, I wanted to see if there were any ways that we could help each other. If you would like to have a Java version of Ledger-SMB being developed in parallel, I'd be happy to put the code into the Ledger- SMB tree. Or we could keep the projects separate but work to keep the schemas in sync. Since I've been reimplementing things and transitioning from another accounting system I've been finding a lot of idiosyncracies in the SQL-Ledger schema. I'm not primarily an accounting/database person and they seemed like things that Dieter wouldn't answer or would take as criticisms. I see that you have ditched doubles in the database for Numerics which is a pretty big step forward. I would really like to fix the schema to handle multiple currencies as true multiple currencies rather than the continual conversions back to a base currency that seem to be going on.
If you're interested in seeing the code let me know and I will check it in either to the Ledgerdemain project or the Ledger-SMB project as you like. If there's no interest in the Java code at the moment I will probably hold off checking it in until I get it more working but I hope that you'll let me ask some dumb questions and make suggestions here. I've been trying to look through the archives of the mailing list but Sourceforge seems to be broken there at the moment.
I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone here. Regards, Dave Smith-Uchida President & Head Geek iGeek, Inc. Tokyo, Japan
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