FA had been forked out of an early version of webERP and both projects have diverged quite a bit. The info presented herein may be used for providing support and migration services besides a study of the outcome (pains and pleasures) of the respective chosen development paradigms and design. FA has been forked off v2.2.11 into xinix-accounting by Xinix as part of their online product goitgoit.

Only a very skeletal diff list is provided here. Further info can be obtained from here - Cache.

Author's personal opinion - As on date, FA is the best choice for most users for it's:

  • simplicity
  • fully working codebase
  • no learning curve
  • well stocked wiki
  • fantastic community userbase - between 4 to 6 users register on the forum each day apart from spikes around release dates.
  • Codebase development is very cautious keeping in mind full backward compatibility.

Versions compared:

  • webERP v4.09.1 (2012-10-13) - Phil Daintree's mainline version - referred henceforth as WERP.
  • FA v2.3.12+ Mercurial Build 3082 (2012-10-11) - referred henceforth as FA.

Repository:

  • WERP uses SVN.
  • FA uses Mercurial now.

Company Database and folder:

  • Both use different table sets for each new company. New companies can be created only from the first (0) default company in both applications.
  • WERP uses a separate database for each new company with no table prefixes and the company's shortname (no spaces) will be the database name and the company folder name.
  • FA can use a different database (with or without table prefix) or the same database with different table prefix for each new company. The company folders are sequentially numbered and have no relationship with the company name, being lined in an array available in the file installed_extensions.php (with next array index number) in the root folder and in each company folder (without next array index number). Security enhancements are in this forum post.

To do list for FrontAccounting - Any Sponsors?

  • serialised/batch stock
  • MRP
  • Extensive Purchase Order and Planning options
  • Shipment Costing
  • Contract Costing
  • Fixed Assets Module
  • Integrated SQL Report Writer Module
  • GL Tags, Dimension (Profit Centres, Depts, Branches)
  • Automated DB Upgrade
  • Weighted Average and Standard Costing
  • Tax, Tax On Tax
  • Context Sensitive Links to Manual
  • API
  • FA is (VERY) slowly and systematically transcending most if not all of the above. Third party modules are now showing up for Payroll, Fixed Assets, Slim FrameWork's SimpleAPI, ReportWriter (outdated), etc.,

Users, please check and provide info regarding whether the following features are present / absent / improvable in FA and developers can channel coding effort here:

  • Inventory reorder levels and planning reporting, extensive functionality for reporting - can create purchase orders and work orders from MRP directly.
  • Pricing utilities pricing based on other price lists/cost - effectivity dates for pricing - so you can set up future prices and expiry dates for prices.
  • Purchasing data with minimum order quantities
  • petty cash/expense claim module
  • Full audit trail of who did what retained with inquiry/search facility
  • Ghost bills of materials
  • Labour type items
  • Delivery in Full on Time reporting?
  • Supplier tenders - supplier login to administer tenders?
  • Factor companies?
  • Stock check system?
  • Various sales inquiries - top items, daily sales, category sales
  • google maps integrations for customers
  • Auto-issue components to work orders
  • Discount Matrix - for discounting by product group/customer group combination with quantity breaks over a range of products.
  • Part pictures
  • Variable decimal places by item
  • Variable decimal places by currency
  • numbers displayed in number format of the locale the user selects ... (not sure if Indian number format is right yet)
  • UTF-8 PDF reports - using CID fonts to avoid bundling enormous font files .i.e. still low bandwidth efficient pdf but render full utf-8 character set (with adobe reader installed with appropriate fonts)

The above may be chosen according to the FA user community's wish list and developer order of inculcation into the FA codebase.

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