Re: Payroll, the state it's in (if any), and where to start

Hi;

On Sat, Oct 19, 2013 at 12:22 PM, Gerald A <..hidden..> wrote:

Hi all,

I've been a long time lurker and an on and off user of ledger SMB (and previously SQL-ledger).

Over the years, I have helped lots of places with IT stuff, and occasionally help guide their software choices.

Now, one of these contacts has reached out to get help with Payroll. Their accountant has suggested they code up some stuff in Excel, so they can keep track. I've been urging them for years to set up a proper accounting system, and I think now is the time to plunge in with both feet, since teaching them how to do this in Excel (and building the supporting pieces around that) will be as much effort as a proper Payroll piece.

Sure.

I'm looking to start with some baby steps and some community advice.

The place that reached out to me is conducting business in Ontario Canada, so if anyone has used payroll in that neck of the woods, it would be helpful.

Mostly, though, I'm wondering what version I should be targeting. 1.3 is the stable prod version, but in digging through docs and articles and google searches, it seems there is a 1.4 "beta" that might have some of the hooks in there. But the code at sourceforge looks a bit older (early 2013) for the beta.

1.4, and target svn trunk/. We haven't released a beta in some time and we should. But I say target 1.4 for two reasons.

First, we can help backport this to 1.3 if you need it, and if you have something running on 1.4, chances are it will work for the foreseeable future. There are some additional dependencies, particularly involving Moose, but a backport would be pretty straight-forward.

I have backported significant improvements for 1.4 to 1.3. There is some work but not a whole lot.

Right now I'm kicking tires and seeing how hard things might be to do. I'd prefer to have this completely automagic, but having to do the calculations outside of ledgerSMB and just enter the results isn't a show stopper at this time, as that is the plan with Excel anyways.

Comments/discouragement/realism encouraged and accepted -- just know I'm stubborn though. :)

I think you want to go into it with a pretty clear plan of what you are getting into. Basically you are putting yourself into a position where you may want to be fairly pro-active on understanding and paying attention to changes in Ontario (and Canadian federal) tax withholding and the like. This isn't the end of the world, I would expect, but it does mean that you may find yourself with more ongoing work that you would expect at first. I suspect this is more of an opportunity than a burden though.

The state of payroll in 1.4 currently is that we have a basic framework designed, but there are a few missing pieces. I would suggest that we start a discussion on the -devel list regarding payroll and getting going with it.

Best Wishes,

Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.

http://www.efficito.com/learn_more.shtml