Who doesn’t want free software? For those of you out there who do not know, there is an entire world of free software known as Open Source software. There are free versions of Microsoft Office (OpenOffice), Photoshop (Gimp), and – the topic up for discussion today – Quicken for Home Business whose general Open Source equivalent is GnuCash.
GnuCash is a nice little software package that I have been playing around with for awhile and am currently using for my small business consulting practice. I’ve been quite impressed! If you are familiar with using any Intuit product for your business (such as Quicken or QuickBooks) the interface will very familiar.
Now, Open Source software is not for everyone – you need to be very comfortable with computers, software, and be able to largely learn on your own as there are not the nice help desks and customer support lines to access if you run into trouble. However, there are great communities of people out there who use the software and will help you if you ask.
To see if GnuCash might be for you, visit their website at http://www.gnucash.org/ and take a look around. I’ve listed some of their features below but there is so much more to see.
Some features of GnuCash