Thank you for supplying these details.

For a small business, and many of us have a small business, it is still wonderful. However, it does not have a payroll tax calculation or sales tax recording features.

Yet, even if you have employees, and if you use a payroll service, GnuCash can still meet your needs (simply create accounts and enter payroll data to detail level you desire).

For sales tax, it can be as simple as transfer of output from your cash register into GnuCash accounts and send in form as required (last I used Quickbooks, you still had to fill out sales tax information manually into a paper or on-line form).

It is one of the extraordinary, elegant intellectual inventions that makes business possible. It is radical and important in the saame sense as the decimal number system and Euler’s polyhedron theorem.

GnuCash is a wonderful implementation of double entry accounting. It is much less confusing than the “T accounts” of accounting textbooks.

If anything, set up a GnuCash system and go read some accounting textbooks so you can appreciate the powerful way GnuCash brings control and understanding to business or non-profit organization activities.

The weakness of GnuCash is it does not yet have an implementation of the “annual closing” process where expenses are moved to a dated file.

The “closing” process has been a frequently requested GnuCash development for several years now.

1) There is a Windows port which installs easily and seems to work. http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Windows

2) GNUCash can be installed on a Mac using DarwinPorts. However it’s a struggle, or it least it was for me when I did it eight months ago. http://gnucash.darwinports.com/ (scroll down the page for instructions)

From the 2.2.4 changelog.
#106383: feature request: close year end

I have seen it, but not tried it yet.

Anyway, they state it is up to the OS to do the encryption.

I use GnuCash at home and I encrypted my drive with Ubuntu. I also have a thumbdrive encrypted with Truecrypt that I use for backups.

For XP/Vista one can encrypt their entire drive with Truecrypt as well.

All of the following is based my limited understanding, and my opinions. Please correct me if I am wrong about any of this.

* Cost advantage: QuickBooks simple start is free. Or I can buy the full version of QuickBooks about $160. Seems to me that any cost advantage of using a foss alternative is negligible.

* Ease of use: Somewhat debatable. But some people site this as a primary reason for Intuit’s amazing success with QuickBooks – supposedly 80% of small businesses use QuickBooks. Although, I have to wonder how the number of foss users can be accurately counted?

* Integration with online banking: my understanding is that only Intuit or Microsoft products can fully integrate with online banking. Not absolutely sure about that.

* Payroll: very regional, and changes often, therefore not well suited for foss.

* Taxes: somewhat regional, and changes often, therefore not well suited for foss.

* Wide acceptance: I think most businesses are much more comfortable using products that are accepted standards.

* Available add-ons: Intuit has a very active community of 3rd party developers. You can buy practically any kind of an add-on you can imagine. These add-ons cost money, but at least they are available.

* Major company: I think a lot of businesses are not comfortable with a product unless there is a major company behind that product. I have to admit, even I am not comfortable with software products that are essentially one man operations.

* Support: I can always hire somebody who knows quickbooks, or find a “ProAdvisor” consultant, or I can get support from the company, and there are hundreds – if not thousands – of developers who specialize in developing for quickbooks. I can not see where that is true for any project.

* Training availability and costs: I can hire people who already know quickbooks. If I hire somebody to work on some foss alternative, then there will be a significant training expense. Of course, there is also the issue of training availability.

* Documentation: If I had to pick one thing that kills the usefulness of more foss projects than anything else, this would win in a slam-dunk. Of course, this varies among projects, some foss projects have great documentation. But, I can always find plenty of books, or other documentation for popular proprietary financial apps.

* Wide acceptance by accountants: maybe as many as 200,000 accountants, use QB and recommend it to their clients. Some accountants will charge much more for files that are not in QB format.

* Widespread 3rd party integration: QB has much better 3rd party integration. For example, ecommerce packages like oscommerce, and magento, work with quickbooks, not foss alternatives. Msft accounting works with ebay. I can not find that sort of integration with foss software.

“contrary to what some believe,[GnuCash] will not replace Quickbooks although it does have some very advanced features. It is more of a competitor with Microsoft Money or Quicken for personal account or small business accounting.”

“One of the most impressive, but complicated, aspects of GnuCash is the ability to connect to your online bank accounts. You may access this Druid by selecting Tools –> Online Banking Setup. You will probably have to contact your bank concerning some of the entries that are required to make this connection and please realize that not all banks will support this type of connection. To make the connection to your bank, you must first choose the backend you need to connect to your online account.

* Listing 5: Online Banking Backends DTAUS backend using AqDTAUS
* HBCI backend using AqHBC/li
* Dummy backend
* OFX-DirectConnect backend

In Germany, or when using a German bank, you have to use the HBCI backend. For just about everyone else, you should try OFX first.”

again I am no expert on these and obviously do not need the advanced features you speak of in Quickbooks (which again has features available that makes GnuCash “not replace Quickbooks although it does have some very advanced features”) and I am unable to comment on what formats Gnucash can/can not export. It does handle/import those file formats commonly used. For home users and many small business owners Gnucash does seem a viable alternative.

As pertaining to documentation the article speaks on it’s strengths

“The online help files that come with GnuCash, as well as the documentation provided on the gnucash.org Web site, is some of the very best available with any open source application. The new user tutorial is well-written and complete. You may need no other references to get you up and running quickly with GnuCash.”

and it’s weaknesses

“Although there is no Quick Start Guide, you will find that GnuCash uses familiar financial nomenclature, account types, and controls. If you have ever used another money management or financial package like Microsoft Money, Quicken, or Quickbooks, you will be GnuCash proficient almost immediately.”

Over all the article seems to fairly assess GnuCash as a viable alternative for those that do not need something more then is offered in quicken or msmoney. For those of you that need more features GNU Cash does “not replace Quickbooks although it does have some very advanced features.”