Open Source Accounting Software in Business

aengstro @ Thu, 10/14/2004 - 17:08

Project:	OSDDP Project
Component:	White Paper
Category:	task
Priority:	critical
Assigned:	kongx
Status:	active
Attachment:	open source document.doc (40 KB)

Description

In the world today there are new businesses that are opening. Many of these new businesses are small and need help with the financial and accounting concerns of the business but do not have a lot of money to spend on elaborate software. Luckily, there is Open Source Software which provides these companies with free downloadable programs that will help run the business and provide up-to-date information. Open Source Software gives new business owners a chance to succeed with no cost.

Updates

Title:	Open Source Software in the Accounting portion of Businesses by Ashley Engstrom	» Open Source Software in the Accounting portion of Businesses
Assigned to:		» frankthebunny

Group 2
Adrienne Darling
Amber Groth
LeAnn Blankenship
Spencer Kelsay

Topic Proposal

With the advancements in communications and technology, more and more people are opening small businesses and successfully operating them from their home. Accounting in large and small businesses is an important part of running a successful business. Today, there are many software programs that are designed to aid in the accounting portion of business. The problem with these programs is that they are very expensive and small businesses do not have the funds to purchase the expensive programs.

An alternative for the small businesses is downloading at no cost one of the many open source software programs that are designed for accounting purposes. These programs have been revised time and time again by users so they are very user friendly and very helpful to a business. The only problem is that many small businesses do not know these open source programs exist.

The topic our group wishes to write about is “Open Source Software in the Accounting Portion of Business.” In our paper we will explain the dilemma of accounting programs in businesses, identify and talk about new open source software programs created for accounting in businesses, and identify where these programs can be downloaded from at no cost to the user.

As a group, we feel that this topic relates very much to the goals of the
Open Source Development and Documentation Project because our topic promotes awareness of newly developed open source software that was designed for use in accounting. It also relates to the goals of OSDDP because it encourages the research of newly developed open source programs.

Group 2
Adrienneowns
boilerchica83
lmblanke
frankthebunny

Open Source Software in the Accounting Portion of Business

With the advancements in communications and technology, more and more people are opening small businesses and successfully operating them from home. Accounting in both large and small scale corporations is an important part of running a successful business. Today, there are many software programs that are designed to aid in the accounting portion of business. The problem with these programs is that they are very expensive and small businesses do not have the funds to purchase the costly programs.

An alternative for the small businesses is downloading at no cost one of the many open source software programs that are designed for accounting purposes. These programs have been revised and revisited by users so they are very user friendly and extremely helpful to a business. The only problem is that many small businesses do not know these open source programs exist.

The topic our group wishes to write about is “Open Source Software in the Accounting Portion of Business.” In our paper we will explain the dilemma of accounting programs in businesses, talk about new open source software programs created for accounting in businesses, and identify where these programs can be downloaded from at no cost to the user.

Title:

Open Source Software in the Accounting portion of Businesses

» Open Source Software for Accounting

Attached is a PDF version of Group 2's Annotated Bibliography on Open Source Software for Accounting

Title:

Open Source Software for Accounting

» Open Source Accounting Software in Business

Status:	active	» needs review
Attachment:	Rough Draft Compiled White Paper.doc (109.5 KB)

Attached is a rough draft of our group’s, Group 2, white paper. The topic of this paper is "Open Source Accounting Software in Businesses." Our paper is geared toward people or businesses within the accounting field. Also, it is for individuals or businesses that are in need of a better software product of accounting purposes.

This document is completed but needs to be reviewed. One of our main concerns of the paper is the comparison between the different open source software products listed. Do you think this offers a good comparison between different software products? Any other comments toward our document would be greatly appreciated.

Attachment:

White Paper Open Source Accounting Software in Business.html (99.74 KB)

Attached is our group’s updated version of our white paper, “Open Source Accounting Software in Businesses.” This paper has been through a lot of revisions including a different design, addition of figures, and the rewording of many paragraphs. The different design that was implemented was color to the headings and subheadings and the use of pictures. Figures, in a chart format, were added to allow for easier reading of text and to grab and keep the attention of the readers. Many of the paragraphs were shortened and unnecessary information was discarded. This document is now in a HTML format and is ready for review.

Any suggestions of information that could be deleted from the updated version would greatly be appreciated. This document is now 2,298 words, barely making the word requirement.

Attachment:

Open Source Accounting Software for Business, Final Draft White Paper.html (35.31 KB)

Picture Visibility Test

This is just a test to see if our image is visible to the public.

Thanks,
LeAnn

Attachment:

HTML White Paper.zip (631.67 KB)

This is another test to see the picture

Thanks, LeAnn

Assigned to:	frankthebunny	» Adrienneowns
Attachment:	White Paper.zip (364.02 KB)

This is yet another test to see if our picture is visible now.

Thanks,
Adrienne

Attachment:

Open Source.zip (441.93 KB)

This is another test

Thanks, LeAnn

Attachment:

Open Source Accounting Software in Business.html (39.53 KB)

Attached is our final draft of our topic, "Open Source Accounting Software in Business." This document is the HTML format.

Thanks,

LeAnn

Attachment:

Open Source Accounting Software for Business.pdf (143.2 KB)

Attached is our final draft of our topic, "Open Source Accounting Software in Business." This document is in PDF format.

Thanks,

LeAnn

Attachment:

Open Source Accounting Software in Business(Group 2).zip (128.85 KB)

Update 11 was having some technical difficulties. Attached is the updated version of our final draft of our topic, "Open Source Accounting Software in Business." This document is in HTML format.

Thanks,

LeAnn

P.S.
Sorry for the mass amounts of updates!

Attachment:

Open Source Accounting Software in Business(Group 2)_0.zip (135.71 KB)

Update 13 is again having some image problems.

Attached is a new, and hopefully last, updated version of our final draft of our topic, "Open Source Accounting Software in Business." This is document is in HTML format.

Thanks,
LeAnn

For the final drafts of our project please refer to post # 12 for the PDF format and post # 14 for the HTML format.

Thank you very much and sorry for the confusion!

Group 2

Priority:	normal	» critical
Assigned to:	Adrienneowns	» kongx
Status:	needs review	» active

Zeller, Kong, Lilovich, LaFramboise

Attachment:

whitepaperprojectfinal.doc (43 KB)

Group 2 final edition, Fall 2006

Xiang, Katie, Jason, Mercedes

Just a few technical things.

sschmelt

Wed, 03/29/2006 - 17:38

Overall, it looks great but there are just a few things. I would maybe leave more space for the title page. There could be some design freedom for the title page. A technical thing is that some new paragraphs are slightly indented when I do not think they should be so just look at your consistency. I like the open source rule breakdown but another technical issue is the format. On point two I would align line two under the first one. Basically, design wise I do not like text under numbers. It becomes distracting. In the part, “What is accounting software?,” There is a large space between two of the sentences. The statistics are great in the growing need portion. Also, the blue shades are great at breaking things up and keeping your attention. There are broken picture links under the “Open Source vs. Traditionally Licensed Accounting Software” section. The product comparison is fantastic along with the links for further information. That really set your paper ahead and impressed me. Great Job besides a few technical errors.

Shanna Schmelter

Thank you for your comments!

lmblanke

Thu, 03/30/2006 - 18:02

Thank you for your comments! They were very helpful!

When posting the white paper document in Nvu to obtain the HTML format, I did not realize how much it did not like the Word format. All of the technical errors will be fixed in the final revision but thank you for pointing them out to me.

LeAnn Blankenship

It looks pretty good

Oneway

Wed, 03/29/2006 - 11:15

It looks pretty good guys. You have made some adjustments that make your white paper look visually more appealing. The one suggestion that I would consider is making your names the same font size at the beginning.

Great Work!

Ben Deatsman

Thanks

Adrienneowns

Fri, 03/31/2006 - 09:25

Thank you for your comments Ben! The names have been changed so that they were all the same size.

Adrienne

Draft 2 Feedback

jessiesn423

Tue, 03/28/2006 - 22:23

• Analyze the structure of the paper. Could any section(s) or paragraph(s) be reorganized? Considering the outline of the various sections given by the headings, is the overall structure the best way to organize the paper?

The most obvious problem that I see with your paper is Figure 1. It does not appear on the website. The box is there, but there is nothing inside of it. I really like the way that you used the colors in the headings. I feel as though it definitely helped to distinguish the parts of that section. I found it much easier to follow this time.
I think you have the paper in an order that makes sense. The parts seem to go in logical order. I wouldn’t change anything about the layout or structure of the paper, except for trying to get Figure 1 to show up.

• Point out which sections in the paper you feel are most important and least important. Since the paper will be heavily reduced in length, describe sections/paragraphs that might be summarized or eliminated all together.

The Executive Summary is the most important part of the paper to me. I think that it will determine how many people actually spend time reading all of the paper, instead of just a part. I think you did an awesome job with the Executive Summary and the introduction. If I hadn’t found out enough information about what was in the paper from the E.S., then I found it in the intro. These are very important parts of the paper and I think your group did a very nice job with them.

• Note wherever the writing is unclear to you or where you feel something needs to be explained more. Were there any concepts or terms that you did not understand? Are there any particular areas in the paper which deserve to be expanded because you feel they are important topics?

I feel like all of your writing was clear. I don’t know a lot about accounting and I know less about open source. Even with that, I feel as though I understood everything that you were trying to convey. I wouldn’t expand anything. The paper isn’t supposed to be an epic. It got me interested in the topic. If I want more information than you gave me, I can look someplace else.

• Note in the paper anywhere where you feel the authors are stating their own opinions rather than reporting on what their research says.

I don’t feel as though you stated your opinion anywhere in the paper. Good job with that!

• Note any problems you might observe with how the paper fits the white paper genre.
I think you chose a good topic and your paper fits well in the white paper genre.

• Important: Since documentation of sources is a critically important aspect of professional research, if you notice any citation problems, point them out to the authors.

I didn’t see any citation problems. I did see a couple of grammatical errors. Under “What is open source” I think it should say “provides the basis” not bases. Also, there is a large space in the sentence #2 from Rechtman. Under “Why is there a ...” in the 3rd paragraph, the last sentence, I would split it into 2 sentences. Put a period after need, and start the next sentence with open. Under the Conclusion, the 3rd sentence, it should be “customers’ needs.” On the bibliography, I think you need to indent the 2nd line of the sources. I’m pretty sure that with both MLA and the other citation method you have to do the indent thing.

Other than these minor changes, I think you guys have an excellent paper! Nice work. Hopefully it all pays off for you in the end!! 

Thank you for your comments!

lmblanke

Thu, 03/30/2006 - 18:08

Thank you for all of your comments! They were very helpful!!

I did not realize the big technical transition from Word to Nvu would cause such problems. All of the technical problems will be fixed for the final draft. Thank you very much for pointing thos problems out as well as the grammar errors we had.

Thank you,
LeAnn Blankenship

feedback on your 2nd draft

cel4145

Sun, 03/26/2006 - 19:08

I've created a PDF of your white paper and loaded it to my server. You'll need Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader to see the comments.

Thank you for the feedback

Adrienneowns

Fri, 03/31/2006 - 09:28

Thank you for the helpful feedback. We hope you will note that we took your comments to heart when revising for the final draft. We rearranged some things, revised some sections, and tried to make the document more visually appealing. We think we have the picture worked out now too.

Thanks again,
Adrienne
(Group 2)

I don't like Frank the Bunny

jrabbott

Wed, 03/22/2006 - 14:58

I don't like Frank the Bunny

Off to an excellent start!

jessiesn423

Mon, 03/20/2006 - 17:01

I have to agree with everyone else who has already reviewed your paper. You guys have done an excellent job with this paper!! It sounds like you have been using these software programs for years! I was very impressed with your paper.

Your structure is good. I think the order that you have presented your topic is easy to understand and logical. I would not change the order of the sections. I think your headings give the readers a very good insight into what that section is going to be about. The only thing I would suggest to change is the heading font or color. It is difficult when going through the pages to tell which heading is a sub-heading and which is not. The only difference that I see is the size of the font. I have to go to the heading above it to check again if the size is different, since there is no dramatic change.

I feel as though all of the sections of the paper are important. There are areas though that you will be able to cut out words for the 2nd draft. I think that you can reduce some wording in the section about why there is a growing need for o.s. accounting software.

I am also unsure of whether you have used any direct quotes or not. I didn't see any quotation marks, but there are lots of citations. I think you did a good job of incorporating your research into the paper. However, I'm not sure that you will need to cite the source after every sentence, especially if you are paraphrasing or just using the main idea from someone else's research. For example, in the "Why is there a growing need.." section, the same source is cited 4 times in the first paragraph. Quotation marks are only used once though. I may be wrong, but I thought that if you paraphrased things that you could just cite the source once at the end of the paragraph or the part where you were using it. That would also help cut down on words without having to lose some of your content.

Under "What is accounting software?" I don't think the 3rd and 4th sentences are necessary if the people reading this article have any affiliation with accounting.

I didn't find any places where you were stating or it seemed like you were stating your own opinion. I think the large amount of citing shows that you have done a lot of research and are using that to base your paper on.

You table was done very well. I liked that it provided a break in the paper so that I could stop and look at something besides just paragraphs for a while.

I felt like you wrote the paper so that everyone could read and understand it. I don't know much about accounting or its related software, but I understood the point that you were trying to get across.

I didn't see any major problems with your citing. I would decrease the number of times that you cited after each sentence in a paragraph, but I think you did a nice job altogether.

Great work! You all produced a great first draft! Keep it up!! 8-)

Thanks for the useful comments!

Adrienneowns

Mon, 03/20/2006 - 20:43

Jessie,

Thank you for your helpful feedback! Our group really appreciates your input. I agree that we should incorporate some color to make our headings more clear and add a little spice to a plain document. Hopefully this color change will make the headings more “dramatic” so that the readers can distinguish between the sections with ease.

I also agree that we can significantly reduce the section on why there is a growing need for open source accounting software because it does get kind of repetitive after the executive summary and introduction. We will definitely have to look into the citation issue as a group because it does seem redundant the way it is now. (I think we were all just trying to be extra cautious that we knew where everything came from.)

I think we might incorporate another table somewhere because we received a lot of positive feedback about it. Thanks again for your comments!!

Adrienne
(Group 2)

Great Job!

sschmelt

Fri, 03/10/2006 - 12:39

I have to say overall it was great!! However, now I have to get into the technical side. The section headers were great because I knew what the sections were talking about for quick reference. I only got lost with the sub-headers sometimes so I would think about changing the font size or color. I think that the executive summary does a great overall look on everything but the introduction and ‘what is open source’ sections got a little redundant. Think about combining them. The ‘users of this software’ section could be combined at the top with explaining the software. I felt a little out of place. The section ‘Open Source vs. Traditionally Licensed Accounting Software’ was a little confusing so a little more clarification and the charts being put at the end of the paper might help for the unity of the document. That also goes for the lists in the software section. I feel the unity from the top to the bottom is not the same. I did not see personal opinion in the paper which was good. There were all sides presented. Also, the genre of the paper was fine as well. Citing looked standard so no problem there either. Great Job!

Shanna Schmelter

Feedback

boilerchica83

Mon, 03/20/2006 - 20:28

Shanna,

Thanks for your comments. I know in our next draft we will change the headers so they are more distinct. We put them together for our first draft quickly and will spend more time on this next. I hope this will help make it less confusing to follow. I think incorporating color might work well. I think having both an intro and executive summary is a little redundant, but I think the executive summary is supposed to reiterate what the entire paper says. The intro leads into the overall purpose of the paper. We may try to combine these so to make it shorter and less redundant. We are planning on making a chart for the traditional vs. open source accounting software so people can get a visual of the differences. I don’t know how to make our unity better or why you thought it wasn’t the same. If you would explain where and how, we may be able to fix that better. Again, thanks for your comments and we’ll include your suggestions in our next draft.

Amber

Great White Paper

amc16

Thu, 03/09/2006 - 23:59

Your white paper on Open Source Software in the Accounting Portion of Business is excellent. Although it is only a first draft your group did a quality job!
Structure~The structure you used in the paper is very helpful to the reader. I like that you start out explaining open source and what it is used for. I also really liked the analogy with the food recipe that you incorporated. It simplified the concept of open source for readers who aren't familiar with it. I think that the way you start from the bottom and work your way up is helpful to readers that are very unfamiliar with your subject/topic.
Importance~I think the most important part of your paper is when you explain why open source is needed in the field of accounting. This gives the reader an idea of what benefits open source has over the proprietary software. The least important part is the comparison between the open source accounting products. I think this can be shortened or summarized. Although it is helpful, since we have to cut down the length I think it is the most non-essential parts of the paper. I also think that if you need to you could shorten the explaination of accounting software. Most likely anyone who reads the paper will be somewhat familiar with the functions of accounting software. I think it is still important to talk about the subject, but if you need to cut more out that would be a possible area to examine.
I don't think your group has had any problems that stood out to me with expressing your own opinions. I think that you did a great job citing your sources as well. It seemed like almost every sentence was cited which means you took everything from your sources which is exactly what we are supposed to do ( I think?)
Overall I think you guys did a great job!! I found so few problems and mistakes that I can't even give you that many good suggestions because I think you did so well! Keep it up!
Autumn Carey

Thanks for the feeback!

Adrienneowns

Mon, 03/20/2006 - 21:03

Autumn,

Thanks for your input! We value your comments!!

Thanks for the compliment on the food recipe analogy. Amber came up with that, and I agree that it simplifies the concepts well. We have received a couple suggestions to cut back on the comparison of open source products, and we will definitely take your comment into consideration when deciding how to cut our document down to fit the word requirements.

You were correct when you said that almost every sentence is cited. Do you think that this detracts from the flow of the document? I’m only asking because it obviously stood out to the extent that you felt the need to mention it, and others have suggested that we try to alter this in some way.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Adrienne
(Group 2)

Wonderful Job!

Oneway

Thu, 03/09/2006 - 21:58

Ben Deatsman

Group 2,

You guys did a wonderful job! I honestly went into this review expecting a handfull of mistakes and revisions to be made. This is a very well written report with a very professional tone to it.

After reading Heidi's response (which was very good), I agree with all of her suggestions but one: so I won't repeat the same things. She mentioned taking away the comparisons of open source softwares. Heidi may have a better eye of it than I do, but I think you should keep the comparisons and take out the "What is open source" section.

I really like the section; but in analyzing the key audience, I feel that it might not be necessary. The key audience is your classmates and professor. We already know the basic concept of open source.

The paper is well organized, spaced, designed, and delivered.

Two Thumbs up!

Ben Deatsman

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Positive feedback is nice :)

Adrienneowns

Mon, 03/20/2006 - 20:52

Ben, Thank you for your comments! Your feedback is greatly appreciated!! I am glad that you noted that it had a professional tone because this was one of our concerns. We are still discussing as a group what to do about the section that compares different open source products to each other, and we will consider your comment as we try to reach a decision on this issue. The Project 2 guidelines call for us to “Be rhetorically sensitive to the needs of the OSDDP audience.” Maybe I misinterpreted this, but I did not think that our target audience consisted exclusively of our professor and fellow classmates. I suppose we should find out if the OSDDP audience is generally familiar with open source technology. I think a white paper is supposed to define basic terminology. Did you mean that we should omit the entire section, “What is open source” or just cut it down so that it is smaller? Thanks again for your input! Adrienne (Group 2)

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Great Start Group 2!

hmdavis

Thu, 03/09/2006 - 17:27

I would like to start out to say that you all did a great job! This is a great open source topic that you all handled very well. The following are my suggestions...

Structure- I think everything is layed out very nicely. I think the flow of you paper works very well. The paper educated the person as they read about open source, then accounting in open source, then then need for it, then the differences, then so on. It educated the person as they read which really helped me as a reader.

Most Important and Least Important- I feel the most important part of your white paper is the need for the application in the accounting field. Since you stated your target audience is employees of the accounting field, it is important to help them see the need for open source. The second best is the comparison between open source and traditional methods. This really showed how open source can help accountants in their daily work compared to their traditional forms.

The section I least enjoyed was the comparisions between open source applications. I think it is great to have in the paper, but as we have to reduce the number of words between this draft and the next, this is an area I feel can be slimmed down.

Clarity- I feel you have a very well written first draft. It is very clear to a reader. As I said before, you educate the person as they read. This is great considering most accountants will be unfamiliar to open source applications. I really liked how you showed the need for open source in accounting. Maybe expand on this with some more statistics showing companies that did and their success in that section, instead of at the end of the paper.

The executive summary can state more about the need in it. It seems to be a large, turing point in the paper and breifly highlighted in the summary. But other than that, I enjoyed the summary.

The paper was well written and I did not notice any points where I felt opinions were coming out. The only suggestion, again, would be to show success right after the need and have it backed up with some quality statistics.

White Paper- It is a very well written paper. You have great headings and subheadings that make it very easy to read. Aside from the few changes in the needs and executive summary section, you have a great start!

Good Luck with the rest of the project!

Heidi

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Thanks for your helpful comments!

lmblanke

Mon, 03/20/2006 - 13:58

Heidi,

Thank you very much for responding to your project issue, "Open Source Accounting Software in Business." Your comments were very helpful.

I agree with the suggestions you made when it comes down to reducing the length of the paper. Yes, the comparision between open source software products is valuable for a longer document but not essentially necessary for the paper. Within our group, we will mostly like be creating a brief summary in a chart format of this information or get rid of the section all together.

The primary purpose behind our paper was directed toward the need for open source software in the accounting business so you are right by saying that the most important part of our document was the "need for the application in the accounting field." We will take our advice and implement the necessary changes to that show the success and statistics behind open source software. As well as making changes to our summary that include a more in depth focus on the need for open source accounting software.

Thank you very much,
LeAnn Blankenship

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Where do I download the accou

bwolfhanley

Fri, 10/29/2004 - 22:47

Where do I download the accounting program?

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