Looking for bookkeeping program that writes checks

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 29 Sep 2015 22:21:38 +1000 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Tue, 2015-09-29 at 01:24 -0700, Tony Baechler wrote:
> > On 9/29/2015 12:58 AM, Tony Arnold wrote:
> > > You could take a look at GnuCash.
> > Yes, but is it simple to use?  I had two people try it and they both said 
> > it's confusing, but I haven't used it.  Also, the package description does 
> > not mention this feature.  It says it imports QIF files, but doesn't say if 
> > it supports a really ancient version of Quicken or not.  I'm not ruling out 
> > your suggestion, but I want to make sure it's either really simple to use or 
> > similar enough to Quicken to avoid much of a learning curve.
> 
> It is not remotely similar to Quicken, except in that all accounting
> programs are sort of similar to each other. Support for the QIF format
> does not mean it "supports Quicken", it can just import QIF files. To
> find out if it supports the version of QIF that you need, create a QIF
> export from Quicken and see if you can import it into GnuCash.
> 
> GnuCash is real double-entry; Quicken faked that with "categories". It
> is simple to use, but probably not in the way you mean. Your friend
> would have to work out how to do the things she wants to do with it;
> after a few repetitions those would be "simple" too.

Right, GnuCash is a *real* bookkeeping / accounting program. Quicken is
something of a 'toy' program, meant for simple checkbook balancing type chores
and *simple* household financing tasks. GnuCash is probably more akin to
QuickBooks -- a 'real' full-featured bookkeeping program. The only things
GnuCash does NOT do are inventory and payrol processing, both of which are
somewhat non-trivial. GnuCash does *everything* else: all of the business
features (invoices, bills, customers and vendors). It handle stocks [I've not
used it for that], including automatically getting quotes. It has some support
for on-line banking. It handles multiple currencies.  *I* use it for my 
business and personal bookkeeping.

GnuCash is open source, has very good community support (which includes an
E-Mail list with knowledgable people who can answer all of your questions) and
runs on all standard platforms: Linux (several distros have built packages in
their repositories), MacOSX, and MS-Windows.

> 
> No non-trivial software is without a learning curve.

+1

> 
> Regards, K.
> 
> 

-- 
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