Multilingual use

[Peter Houppermans <..hidden..>]

Although this mailing list is English, the Chart of Accounts (COA) one 
can select are in various languages and the user interface also has a 
few languages available.  However, what is not present is the ability to 
have more than one language in the COA.

Especially if a business lives on the border with another country (or in 
a multilingual country), you end up with transactions and staff in 
multiple languages.  It is considered bad form to expect the customer to 
speak your language (well, it is in non-English and non-French countries 
but I don't want to start an international flame war here :-) so it 
means multiple invoice sets etc.

More importantly, though, can be the data entry needs.  Although you can 
be reasonably sure that management staff will speak English, this may 
not be the case for local accountants and data entry clerks, and that 
means that, at present, account titles like "1234 Cars - Voitures - 
Autos" will be required (and note I'm assuming here that the core 
business language would be English - which is already a stretch).

I would like to know if I'm the only one coming across this issue.  I 
can't see the point in asking for a feature that would only benefit my 
specific use of the program (I refer to the date default discussion 
which makes sense but is also for a limited audience) - I'll manage. 

I also know that this can have quite an impact on reporting (which 
language to pick?) but that could be a later phase, I'm more concerned 
with making sure a secretary doesn't need to think about which a/c to 
post to because the descriptions aren't clear.  I prefer to prevent 
errors before they're made..

To avoid the template answer, alas I can't submit a patch (and I suspect 
that goes for a great deal of your target audience).  I haven't coded 
for over 20 years so I don't think that my skills would be up to the 
general quality of LSMB, let alone that I used to code in some 
proprietary languages if I wasn't crafting 6303 assembler :-).

So, to summarise: anyone else in a multilingual country or living close 
to the border?

/// P ///