Comment by j45

Comment by j45 15 hours ago

4 replies

Wow, this is really neat. Congrats on the launch. Are you seeking or accepting contributors? I’ll be installing it today.

I’ve unintentionally worked with and helped implement systemization and automation over a dozen different accounting systems and ERPs. They blur together.

Since I have a tech background, it’s not uncommon for me to say an accounting system or ERP is just line item rows moving though tables leaving their history behind… and how do you need it… and now it exists, haha.

A few questions:

- Journals and accounts are traditionally taught as the manual way to track different financial activities and ensure accurate reporting. Journals capture transactions as they happen, while accounts categorized them for analysis. Now that we have databases and reporting tools, is there a sense of where reporting or crunching things like profitability, job costing, etc could be built up from this?

Account code migration - when implementing a new accounting system, companies tend to dither over getting their GL right, or changing it up at implementation. Being able to maintain that history could help migration of data easier.

As someone who has helped design and lead implementations overall, with accountants handling their part, accounting depts can get caught in trying to do a lot with accounts and journals in lieu of a report.. while databases have allowed ERPs to report in ways (dimensions, etc) that might not be about accounts or journals alone.

Mostly I’m thinking about organizations that wanted to build up calculation of profitability by asset, or resource or service, or product, and how a project like this could help people easily do it from these first principles.

journal 14 hours ago

I have a few ideas in the works for accepting contributions that I will iron out in the coming days. I have some breaking changes in the works to make the journal more reliable and testable. The current implementation requires deep understanding of my vision.

AFAIK, North Korea, Russia, and United States, all have the same five accounts types and require double-entry.

This truly is a mission to rebuild an institution. My goal is to educate a new generation of accountants. The kind who can produce any report from raw journal entries and who can add new features to the journal.

Parent-child relationships help with reporting, but I notice the need to include parent-child relationships almost everywhere; locations, items (products/services), chart-of-accounts, users, tasks, etc.

I've not touched reporting because I know it will be easy to do.

If I get the journal, accounts, and transactions right, the rest is easy street.

One thing to mention at this time is that I don't see a need to manually enter journal entries. I'm ready to catch flack for saying this, but maybe... idk. Still in R&D phase.

  • karl11 14 hours ago

    Lack of manual journals would be a non-starter, I am actually not clear how a business could possibly run their books without manual journals.

    An example: you make something that uses 5 inputs. I have inventory and cost of goods sold accounts for each of those inputs, but my invoices out to customers only reference the final product. This is where ERPs add insanely complex inventory management solutions. However, the simple way to deal with it instead is to use a manual journal to reconcile your inventory and cost of goods sold accounts monthly or however often you like.

    • journal 14 hours ago

      I have all the in the works, including complex assemblies and reporting.

      I wish I had the $ to hire help.

    • j45 12 hours ago

      Interesting example - Complex ERP inventory management and manufacturing experience here:

      It seems reasonable to need manual adjustments, but I'm not sure if entries would be needed. Deciding how to make corrections and adjustments seems to be key in any manual journal entries, or not.

      If journal entries derive from transactions elsewhere, chaining those together, or something to adjust them them is pretty reasonable.

      About split entries like the scenario you've outlined? Cost of Goods Sold, vs manufacturing are all often in different parts of the ERP that may not tie back to journals always. Perhaps there is a pattern to setup that is repeatable. I'm not sure if you have a software background, but source code control of managing the bits of what changed when is important.

      Another scenario where manual stuff might not work is if we have a just in time manufacturing process, and don't complete the finished goods until the items are on the truck and signed for by the driver (un damaged) so then you can finalize manufacturing, invoicing, shipping documents, etc. There's ways to reduce having to undo all of those if product is damaged between manufacturing and shipping. Of course this has it's own caveats. Implemented OK in SAP though.

      Overall, a real need and goal is: reducing the amount accountants or anyone who works with an accounting data has to dump out data from the accounting system to "manipulate the data" to get a view of what happened/happening/needs to happen.

      Unpopular take based on experience: It's been my experience that a good chunk of accounting groups that run around with their hair on fire that the system is somehow not working... calls in someone with database or analysis skills, to discover something wasn't done as needed, or not configured and implemented. In this way, the Technical ERP whisperers out there who are not accountants but handle the "in depth analysis"..