Re: new potential user here: some basic queries

[Bob Miller <..hidden..>]

With these limitations in mind, I had a few queries about SMB Ledger:
1. How does it measure up in the above scenario?
2. I notice that SQL Ledger has a package in Ubuntu (just installed it: 
aptitude install  sql-ledger). From what I just learned, SMB Ledger is a 
fork of that application. From their webpages, I have reached the 
conclusion that if given a choice, I would prefer SMB Ledger. Does this 
have a package in Ubuntu or Debian? If not, is one expected soon?
3. Once installed, can SMB Ledger be used by an accountant or a person 
with knowledge of finance stuff without much difficulty, specially 
without being a developer, computer programmer or maintainer?
4. Given the, I supposed simple, task (keep track of donors, their 
donations, and compile a report at the end of an year and tax receipts 
for them), does SMB Ledger have the capability to do this without any 
tricky tweaks?

Thanks for help. Feel free to give suggestions since I am just starting 
to learn about these kind of applications.

Regards,
->HS

I am no expert, but I will offer what I can...
as per the above scenario, both sql-ledger and ledgersmb will keep a customer database, print receipts, keep records of produced receipts, and generate reports at the end of the year.  Security, at least encryption, is probably better handled by the operating system, apache, and/or the network.  There may be some feature of ledgersmb I am not aware of that does encryption.  From what I understand, ledgersmb has had recoding done to address security issues that exist in sql-ledger in regards to operating in an untrusted network.
To my knowledge ledgersmb is not maintained in any debian or ubuntu repositories, and I am not aware of anybody maintaining .debs on the net.  Installation is documented quite well, though, if you are comfortable with command line you should have no troubles with it.
I cannot speak for future plans regarding getting into repositories.
As to how your accountant deals with it my experience has been so; I have shown this program and sql-ledger to several bookkeepers/business people/accountants.  Some only needed a minute to look around, and they figured out pretty quick what was what and usually they find everything they look for.  Most are not like that, though, they need at least a cursory tour to show them where to configure taxes, add customers, etc - a technician's level of experience has gotten me by so far.  It really depends on how comfortable they are with computers, accounting software, and accounting in practise.  Your user's experience will depend largely on him.  But I can say that if he can use a computer in general, and knows a thing or two about accounting and accounting software, he *shouldn't* have any serious problems.
Good luck whatever you decide...




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Bob Miller
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