Accounting Packages for Non-Profits

Many groups do seem to be operating on an Excel spreadsheet basis.  Of the ones that have moved on, Sage Line 50 and Tas Books seem to crop up repeatedly as ones that people use.   However, the cost of licencing, supporting and upgrading such proprietary systems can prove significant.   The needs of the average community and voluntary group are not unlike those of small business, so the popularity of Sage and Tas is unsurprising.  Often a charity will have specific reporting requirements to sho specific project related funding/expenditure.  Whilst this can certainly be achieved with forethought in the likes of Line 50 through the use of departments, it is not something which is an obvious design feature.

There are free/cheap solutions available.  GNUCash is an open source desktop accounting package which is free to download and provides all the common accounting functionality.  SQL Ledger is a step further: it runs on a web server, so it can be accessed from any internet access point, and therefore can be accessible to travelling or geographically disparate people within an organisation.  Where SQL Ledger really differs from the GNUCash type program, which is for one desktop machine, is that SQL Ledger is shared between the people in an organisation.   This means that if several people are working on the accounts, they are all always seeing the same data.   SQL Ledger does allow for the tracking of project specific income and expenditure.

You can download GNUCash for free .  See the GNUCash manual here.  SQL Ledger takes some more setting up - and a hosting account with a web services provider - but non profit IT consultancy company ENCLUDE will provide the service of configuring, setting up, hosting and supporting the product for you.