Topic: Recommendation for ERP / Accounting Software

[TTown]

Hello Everybody,

I am looking for accounting / ERP software to use with my SME7.3 server (in a small company environment). I didn't recognize / find anything of this sort in the contribs section.
What are your recommendations / experiences?
Has someone tried ERP5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERP5), or NolaPro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NolaPro)?

Thank you
Stefan

[imcintyre]

I'm interested in this also, I was looking into it about a year ago but got distracted. I'll dig out my notes. They are pretty slim but I started calling some and doing a bit of research.

[jester]

Just some suggestions, no real experience with both: LedgerSMB and Openbravo.

[rebeccagill]

I'd suggest you consider Enterprise 21 from Technology Group International.  Enterprise 21 is available for on-site installation and in an SaaS subscription format.

The website is www.tgiltd.com.

[imcintyre]

I haven't made it to my notes (there at work) but I found this link which might be useful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_accounting_software

Rebeccagill, do you have use the software or are you a seller?

[TTown]

Update:

I tried installing NolaPro to an I-Bay (since it is for local access only anyway) last night. I didn't try ERP5 since it comes either with its own OS or gets sort of complicated.
Right now I am stuck with a problem with (mostly) php settings that are correct for my I-Bays running Joomla but don't work for NolaPro. Maybe I need to move the NolaPro site to a SMESitemaker created site (I am not sure this would make things easier).

Open (NolaPro) issues:
a) Zend Optimizer not installed - this seems easy to fix
b) php: auto_detect_line_endings must be on (current value: off) - will conflict with recommended Joomla settings
c) php: register_globals must be on (current value: off) - will conflict with recommended Joomla settings

I'll need to read up on this to find a proper solution.

I'd still like to give ERP5 a try but it really offers two (4) installation paths:
(1) live CD - formats the hdd and is completely out of question)
2) .rpm files - I don't know how well this would integrate with e-smith...
3) source code - well, this is above my head and I will not mess with it on a (ok, not mission critical) production server
(4) - a binary installer requiring glibc >= 2.4 - my 7.3 server runs glibc 2.3.4-2.39 - so this is another no-go)

@jester: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LedgerSMB does not read like something I want to use professionally - with respect to expecting long(er) term support. At least it leaves a questionable first impression. The product may still be good though. Thanks for the pointer.
I would give Openbravo a spin but it requires either
- Oracle 10g release 2 (Express, Standard and Enterprise editions), or
- PostgreSQL Database Server 8.1.4
none of which come standard with SME 7.3 (I believe...).
I'd much rather stick with MySQL and its interface of choice phpMyAdmin.

@rebeccagill: I failed to point out my focus on gpl (and the like) licensed products.
Also http://www.tgiltd.com/small_business_erp_software.html -> "Furthermore, because of our new Self Implementing Software and Integrated Training System (ITS), we can have your small business running new, fully functional ERP software tailored to your specific business within 60 to 90 days of contract signing." is not what I was looking for.
Thanks for pointing it out to me anyways.



Please advise
Stefan

[imcintyre]

I know that the accounting thing exists but I wanted to make sure the manufacturing side of things was capable so I have a slight bias in the notes and tech questions I asked. I was concerned with bom's, routings, lot traceability, etc.

I have no commercial or other truck with any of these guys so here are my notes, such that they are;

1) contacted compiere-worth following up
Got a decent response, talked to a sales rep who wanted to do a professional sales job with a needs assessment. So that was good. I don't think there was any demo possibilties that I could play with. We already have a system in place (CMS/I-series) and would be looking to migrate, so I have a pretty clear idea of needs. I'm going from 1 year ago memory but it seemed that sales guy didn't seem up to the answers of capabilities

2) contacted openpro -worth following up
Got a good response with answers to my specific technical questions. Probably worthwhile investigating. This is the guy I talked to is jasonp@openpro.com

3) Called DBA - worth following up
Doesn't run on SME (as near as i can tell), not free but not expensive. If you can get over the previous two points have a look. I downloaded and installed on my laptop and was able to create customer, suppliers, part #'s and order parts and run them (virtually of course). Good answers to tech questions, great web site movie training sessions, and great fully functional demo. Not sure of accounting interface/strengths as this is not my forte. Hey and I got a return call from the owner on one of my questions.
http://www.dbamanufacturing.com/

4) Called Epicor - unknown
I got a response but nothing happened after that, probably my issue not theirs.

5) Called ERP5 - unknown
I called and emailed but did not get a response. Not promising start but again, I moved onto other things.

[Marco Hess]

Just some suggestions, no real experience with both: LedgerSMB and Openbravo.

I am running LedgerSMB version 1.1.12 on SME 7.3. At the time, (about a year and a half ago) it was sort of the best that I could find that I could run with no or minimal cost (I was just starting my business) and I was looking for something that supported:

a) web based interface, so I could access it from a remote location if required
b) multi user capable
c) some manufacturing/assembly support
d) services support for invoicing consultancy hours

It has some bugs and quirks that I currently have learned to avoid

My biggest gripe with LedgerSMB at the moment is the installability of it, which with newer versions is increasingly difficult. The package maintainers have a tendency to pull in special perl packages that are not commonly available in common rpm repositories and if there is often not available for EL4. There recommendation is to install through the perl package manager, but that thing is a bit obscure and tends to pull in much more that you would want on a production system and you have no idea how it would affect (read break) other applications.

So at the moment I am stuck at the 1.1.12 version while the current release is 1.2.13 or something. I might try again when SME 8 is released.

I have been actively looking for alternatives for a while now but have not really found anything yet that I am happy with.

Openbravo looks promising, but I have not really been able to get it properly up and running and even the VMware version I run into issues I did not understand how to handle.

Another promising one is Postbooks from xTuple. I actually liked that one, was able to get it up and running in minutes (even though it has a client application rather than web interface), but it has a strong manufacturing background and currently has no support for non-stock service type items (like consultancy hours) which is sort of a no-go for me at the moment.


Another one I looked at is TinyERP. Very modular, but somehow I fail to understand on how it is supposed to go together and getting it to do what I want. I first thing I often tend to look at is how I can product an invoice for some service/product and how to customise the printout of that invoice. Could not figure out where to customise this in TinyERP.

What I would love to see is an ERP/Accounting implementation with the look and feel of something like redmine (a project management app like Trac in Ruby on Rails). Nice lean and clean interface and installs easily with everything needed packed into the application. I would love to build an accounting package to that example but don't have the time available or Rails expertise to do so at the moment and I just hoping that somebody else builds an Ruby On Rails accounting package.

I also looked at Compiere but found it also a bit over the top (similarly like Openbravo for that matter) for the size/type of business I am.

Marco

[croo]

Adempiere is a ERP in the same vein as Compiere or OpenBravo.
We are a fork of Compiere and although OpenBravo would never admit the same, I think you only have to look at them both to see the similarity.

We in Adempiere however place the Community at the centre of our project because we believe in Open Source a strong community is key to ensuring a quality, well tested, software product.  As a community based project we don't have the $ millions the likes of Compiere & OpenBravo have to spend on marketing but there is a lot of work done to make a very stable product.

The community is made up from professionals & companies offering implementation, customisation & support services.  So it is in no way a hobby product!
You can run an online demo here http://demo-adempiere.idalica.net/adempiere-demo/demoLog/demo

For more information go to our wiki at http://www.adempiere.com/wiki

You can search the "world wide directory" in the wiki looking for professional service providers or contact our Business Development team to help you find an experienced service provider http://www.adempiere.com/wiki/index.php/ADempiere_Business_Development_Committee_%28BDC%29

Like compiere & openbravo the current Manufacturing facilities are a bit of a joke, but we have just integrated a complete Manufacturing module which while stable (it has been in production for over a year) is not yet fully tested in the community and needs to be completed with migration scripts & documentation.  But it is perfectly usable and you can test this version on a nightly build which is open to all to test via http://www.testadempiere.com/demo.html - you will find more information in the wiki.

Colin

[imcintyre]

Has anyone looked at this http://frontaccounting.net/wb2/

I tried to install it on a clean install of 7.3, thought I'd followed along the directions but could not get it to go.

[TTown]

I just installed frontaccounting. It actually went pretty smoothly with the exception of the mysql database user. During the installation I had to give him all rights, not just for his own database. I removed the global rights after the installation and played with it for a bit. No problems so far.

How I did it? (ok, this outlines my second try - the first try had smesitemaker create the database user and failed with some database access problems...)
1) created a site with smesitemaker (all settings default) and removed index.htm
2) untared the .tgz file to its rightfull place (myserverip.com/front) (=/opt/front/)
3) browsed to myserverip.com/front/install
4) chowned www:www some (5) directories the installer complained about being unwritable
5) used phpMyAdmin to create a user "somename" with all rights to a database "somename" - I did for the setup have to give him some extra global rights. Since I didn't know which I gave him all and took them away again after the installation.
6) changed password for admin
Bingo

Good luck
Stefan


P.s.: I also tried NolaPro but couldn't make it run. I completely failed when I tried putting it in an ibay. Using smesitemaker I got stuck at one last (?) hurdle: It needed a certain php setting I just couldn't make work (register_long_arrays on)

[imcintyre]

I tried setting it up in an ibay and doing the manual set up. Never used sme sitemaker before but I will give it a try. Thx for the reply and suggestion.
Ian

Worked great, my problem was that I downloaded the zip file, not the tar file. Although it says they are platform independent, they don't contain the same info or perhaps the download went wrong.

Thx again

[imcintyre]

Found this in another post

http://www.phreebooks.com/

[Bud]

Installed fa2rc2 and all works perfectly. Using SME 7.3

I cannot seem to Create a New Company with the "en_USE-new.sql"
I keep getting a " Error creating Database: newcompany, Please create it manually "
I have Created my New Company (newcompany) using phpmyadmin and a User with all Rights to the Database. Still it says the Same thing " Error creating Database: newcompany, Please create it manually "

Any Help Greatly Appreciated 

[Bud]

No Problem got it Working.

All Ok

Long Live SME