What is GnuCash? Here’s from their website:
GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.
GnuCash is developed, maintained, documented, and translated entirely by volunteers.
Okay, what really caught my eye was “Free.” That’s my favorite price. My fear is that you often get what you pay for.
My first impression? GnuCash is pretty easy to set up the basics like the Chart of Accounts, Customers, and Vendors. I miss the Save & New button from QuickBooks. Maybe there’s a shortcut but I haven’t found it yet.
I think it took me about 30 minutes to get a “church” set up in GnuCash. This is pretty good. Because it’s desktop software, there are some advantages. You can work offline. There is no internet lag. You can easily make a backup copy that you can restore.
My biggest concern at this point is that it is built for individuals and for-profit small businesses. This reminds me a lot of Quicken. I’m not a fan of Quicken for non-profits.
In the video, you can watch me go through the set up process. The plan is enter some transactions next video. The video after that, I want to run some reports and maybe grade GnuCash.
Useful Links
- GnuCash: https://www.gnucash.org/
- GnuCash Manuals: https://www.gnucash.org/docs.phtml
- The Busy Bee Post’s walkthrough of GnuCash: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmgR2eygrwdgCgFoFEkzNnl5C0pL9ZxNI
- My Chart of Accounts for QBO: http://jctaccounting.com/2023/05/05/quickbooks-online-setting-up-the-chart-of-accounts/
Is there a Budget component?
Hey Jim, There is. I hope to try it out this month to see how good the reporting is.