• Registered: 03/15/2010
  • Posts: 5

Topic: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Hello All,

My apologies if this post is in the wrong forum.  I wasn't sure of the  correct forum to post this type of inquiry.

I recently became aware of FA and it apears to be a very nice app.  It may very well meet a specific need I have at this time.  On the features page it says "3.FrontAccounting is in active development and is now shortly ready for release."   However, by browsing the forums it apears to me that it probably is being used by many people in actual production environments. 

Would any care to comment as to how they are using it, what size/type of company they use it with, and/or any other comments that someone new to/considering FA might find useful?

Thanks in advance.

Anthony

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Hello Anthony,
thank you for pointing out this outdated information. FrontAccounting has release cycle established a couple of years ago, so point 3. on features page is misleading. I have fixed it. FA is suitable enough for most SME segment companies and non-profit organizations as well. There is lack of some more sophisticated features like batch/serials inventory control needed eg. in food industry, but it has most basic features needed by average business activity.

Janusz

  • Registered: 03/15/2010
  • Posts: 5

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Janusz,

Thank you for this clarification.  Do you feel the system could handle a large amount of inventory items, such as greater than 100,000 active inventory records?  My application would be retail stores, and even a relatively small store will have thousands of items.

thanks,

Anthony

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

There is no internal constraints which could make this impossible. The best you can do is download the application, install it and test. For such a big amount of items surely you will want to use 'Search item list' option in company setup (which filter items available in item selectors using pattern entered after space bra  pressed).

Janusz

  • alvin
  • Senior Member
  • Offline
  • From: USA, Guatemala, Honduras
  • Registered: 05/20/2008
  • Posts: 301

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Hello Anthony

I currently use FA for a retail operation. We buy and sell in 3 countries, and currencies. And this is not without problems. We do not have a good POS yet, but there are some users here willing to put up some dev money including myself. Purchasing, inventory control and management still need some work but has gotten much better then when I started.

I have used a lot of web server erp systems (open source) and this is the only one that comes close to doing what we need for this business.

Every day this system gains users gets better.

Alvin,

almacennaval.com

"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet."  - Aristotle.
  • Registered: 03/15/2010
  • Posts: 5

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Hello Alvin,

What you have said is interesting.  My sitution is that I have a POS system that is currently interfaced with a custom Oracle based backend, and I am looking to make the backend more small business friendly.  This means I either port the backend to something like mysql/postgresql, or I find another backend accouting/inventory system to integrate with.

My POS system is written with Microsoft.Net, but it uses web services to communicate to the backend system,  so it can be interfaced with other systems without having to make signifigant changes to the POS.  It also can be run "offline", so it does not need a constant connection to the backend system to process sales.  Looking at the FA database, I do see a few missing features/fields that I need for POS such as Retail Price start/end times (so price changes can be entered in advance of the price change taking effect) and Promotional Prices with start/end times, along with a few other item type and price related fields, but nothing that strikes me as overly difficult to add to FA.

I hope to do more testing with FA and look at the code and database design a  bit more to help make the decision if integrating with  FA would be simpler than porting what I currently have.

Best Regards,

Anthony

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 01/12/2011
  • Posts: 8

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

We are considering moving from Windows to Linux and using Ubuntu and FrontAccounting.  We have been testing FrontAccouting, however, we are running into alot of complications and difficulties. We are wondering what other users thoughts and experiences are on setting up this program.  I would also be intersted in knowing what type of business use this program.

Thank you.

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Peggie,

I would like to help but I can't if I know nothing about 'complications and difficulties' you have encountered. I hope 'search' feature on the forum  have solved at least some of them for you already.

Janusz

  • From: USA
  • Registered: 01/12/2011
  • Posts: 8

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Itronics,

I am just curious what other businesses experience with this program have been.
I'm looking for both good and bad reviews on this program.

  • From: UK
  • Registered: 12/29/2009
  • Posts: 28

Re: How is FrontAccounting Being Used.....

Hi Peggy,

We are a very diverse company using Front Accounting.  Our divisions (dimensions in FA) include Manufacturing, Service Work , Wholesale and Retail. As you can imagine, we are pushing Front Accounting quite hard, and I have only good stories for you.

Interesting for you may be the fact that we are running Front Accounting on Ubuntu Server, and all of our desktops and laptops are running Ubuntu Desktop. The system is very fast, and very reliable. We have not had one incident of down-time.

The only snag I encountered was permissions on some of the directories, and this was through my own ignorance and not a fault of Front Accounting. FA has a very good System Diagnostics Report, and I used the report to fix the permissions in minutes. It was that easy!

If you need a hand with the setup of Ubuntu Server or Front Accounting on it, then I am quite happy to try and help. I'm really not an expert, but even I managed to get everything running very quickly.

Regards,

Dave.