On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Pete Houston <[email protected]> wrote: > I would tend to agree with Bob on this one. If the development of LSMB > concentrates on making it the best at what it does (which is accountancy > first and foremost with hooks into inventory, PoS, etc.) and then builds > a solid, consistent API on top of that then I would consider that as job > done. > > Those who want to add in various CRM, ERP, RT and who-knows-what-else > functionality can then choose their preferred CRM, ERP, etc. tool and > just write the glue to go between them. This is the open source way.
Pete: Can you define ERP? Does that include our order/quotations management side? Part of the issue is that accounting as a software discipline is becoming as subset of ERP as a general discipline (as is CRM btw). Even Quickbooks offers features which are more traditionally ERP functions than accounting functions. One of the current issues with the codebase (which is relevant to your concern) is that it is currently a bit of an everything-and-kitchen-sink approach already. I mean, how many of the users are using the POS functionality? There are two reasons to look at extending LedgerSMB with modules to support additional areas: 1) It provides additional functionality out of the box that is tightly integrated to the accounting side. So for example one can do management accounting based on CRM data (labor cost tracking per sales rep per sale, etc and apply this both forward looking as well as backward looking) which is hard to do in loosely tied systems without adding a lot of really thick glue. 2) It provides a model for integration with other applications. So if you don't like the CRM approach, it becomes easier to push data in from a third party FOSS app, such that the benefits of #1 are preserved. > > Please don't add in features like this which don't really belong in an > accountancy package and which are implemented well elsewhere - just give > us the tools (ie. an API) so that our choices of applications can be > made to talk to one another. TBH we are already to that point. A POS interface, quotation and order management, etc. are all things which probably belong more in a larger ERP framework than in a accounting program narrowly defined. So what I would like to see is something for 2.0 that gives us all a benefit from both worlds. 1) A core module (basic contact/credit account tracking, chart of accounts, AR/AP transactions, GL transactions, financial reports. No inventory tracking, no quotations and order entry tracking. Just a solid, very basic accounting module. 2) Other modules around this which provide additional functionality. Areas which would be moved into optional modules would be: a) Job costing and project accounting. b) POS and retail management c) Inventory, Warehousing, Invoicing, and Order Management d) Pricegroups e) Departments and budgets f) Assemblies and manufacturing etc..... The thing is, I don't think we can get to some of the more advance possibilties in accounting (management accounting in particular) unless there is a model for tracking CRM data in a more management-accounting-friendly way. So what I am looking at first and foremost is a way of extending the job costing side to make it more CRM-friendly. I do agree that if someone doesn't need something they shouldn't have to install it. A point of sale aimed at small retail shops doesn't make ANY sense when installed at a financial services business, for example. Ideally each of these would be separate projects integrating at the database level. But we aren't there yet though I'd like us to be there by 2.0. Also as a call to the community, if there are other things you want to see available as addons and are willing to put code into, we do have a separate area of SVN (for 1.x) set aside for this. So I don't entirely disagree with you. I just don't want to see us in a corner because we focus on financial accounting to the exclusion of other (higher end) forms of accounting which pretty much require wider functionality to work. Best Wishes, Chris Travers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Storage Efficiency Calculator This modeling tool is based on patent-pending intellectual property that has been used successfully in hundreds of IBM storage optimization engage- ments, worldwide. Store less, Store more with what you own, Move data to the right place. Try It Now! http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51427378/ _______________________________________________ Ledger-smb-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ledger-smb-users
