getting started with ofbiz for small business accounting needs

[Henning Sprang-3]

Hi,
I've been looking for a free software to make my accounting work for
my starting self-employment as IT consultant.
Looking back and forth, there seems to be not that much, but the
description on the OFbiz site, combined with Java as language, was
quite appealing. I've got some years of Java experience, so here I
could make customizations.

Now that I looked at it for a while, and tried to get started (I
downloaded and started opentaps and neogia), I am quite overwhelmed.

I only need accounting, and eventually a bit of CRM stuff (which I'd
otherwise do with SugarCRM/vTiger) - and the sheer download size of
the ofBiz products, and all the manufacturing and whatnot things I
have in the interface got me quite a bit confused.

I wonder, do you think it is appropriate for a very small business to
use ofBiz for the mentioned tasks?
Or would you suggest, my plan B, writing something myself with
groovy/grails as easy development framework, with a low learning
curve, exactly tailored for my small needs ?

If you believe I should do it, where are some simpler guides?
I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
anymore. I really don't know where to start.

Henning


--
Henning Sprang
http://www.sprang.de | http://lazyb0y.blogspot.com/

[Adrian Crum]

If you're only looking for something to run your own business on, then
it might be best to use an off-the-shelf accounting program.

If you're looking for accounting software that you can offer to clients
that are small businesses, then OFBiz might be right for you.

One thing you could consider is downloading OFBiz, tailor it for use by
small businesses, and then create an easy to install CD. That would be
your value-add and the reason small businesses would hire you.

-Adrian

Henning Sprang wrote:

> Hi,
> I've been looking for a free software to make my accounting work for
> my starting self-employment as IT consultant.
> Looking back and forth, there seems to be not that much, but the
> description on the OFbiz site, combined with Java as language, was
> quite appealing. I've got some years of Java experience, so here I
> could make customizations.
>
> Now that I looked at it for a while, and tried to get started (I
> downloaded and started opentaps and neogia), I am quite overwhelmed.
>
> I only need accounting, and eventually a bit of CRM stuff (which I'd
> otherwise do with SugarCRM/vTiger) - and the sheer download size of
> the ofBiz products, and all the manufacturing and whatnot things I
> have in the interface got me quite a bit confused.
>
> I wonder, do you think it is appropriate for a very small business to
> use ofBiz for the mentioned tasks?
> Or would you suggest, my plan B, writing something myself with
> groovy/grails as easy development framework, with a low learning
> curve, exactly tailored for my small needs ?
>
> If you believe I should do it, where are some simpler guides?
> I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
> tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
> anymore. I really don't know where to start.
>
> Henning
>
>

[BJ Freeman]

I concur with adrian. Get something like the intuit products.
I use home and business for my consulting.
not sure what you require for CRM but ofbiz has the ability, just not as
evident at first sight.
as far as size, what do you expect from an Enterprise level software?
:)
As a guide, read the Data model books.


Henning Sprang sent the following on 12/1/2008 2:19 PM:

> Hi,
> I've been looking for a free software to make my accounting work for
> my starting self-employment as IT consultant.
> Looking back and forth, there seems to be not that much, but the
> description on the OFbiz site, combined with Java as language, was
> quite appealing. I've got some years of Java experience, so here I
> could make customizations.
>
> Now that I looked at it for a while, and tried to get started (I
> downloaded and started opentaps and neogia), I am quite overwhelmed.
>
> I only need accounting, and eventually a bit of CRM stuff (which I'd
> otherwise do with SugarCRM/vTiger) - and the sheer download size of
> the ofBiz products, and all the manufacturing and whatnot things I
> have in the interface got me quite a bit confused.
>
> I wonder, do you think it is appropriate for a very small business to
> use ofBiz for the mentioned tasks?
> Or would you suggest, my plan B, writing something myself with
> groovy/grails as easy development framework, with a low learning
> curve, exactly tailored for my small needs ?
>
> If you believe I should do it, where are some simpler guides?
> I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
> tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
> anymore. I really don't know where to start.
>
> Henning
>
>

[Henning Sprang-3]

Hi Adrian,
Thanks for the reply!

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 11:36 PM, Adrian Crum <[hidden email]> wrote:
> If you're only looking for something to run your own business on, then it
> might be best to use an off-the-shelf accounting program.

I decided not to do that because

1) I'm an OpenSource guy - I'm not goin to run closed source stuff for
this - even less am I going to run windows just for this sake. There
is one OpenSource candidate the looks like an "off-the-shelf" but
still open source accounting tool, even customized for the german
market, "lx-office", but I already hated it after going through the
quite misleading installation instructions and see it has many uneven
things in usage.
2) Sooner or later, I'll have specific needs (for example connect my
timetracking system directly to the accounting, connect CRM, etc. - so
I need something extendable.

> If you're looking for accounting software that you can offer to clients that
> are small businesses, then OFBiz might be right for you.

A mixture of what I explained above and this is the reason that
brought me to OFBiz.

> One thing you could consider is downloading OFBiz, tailor it for use by
> small businesses, and then create an easy to install CD. That would be your
> value-add and the reason small businesses would hire you.

Sounds an interesting Idea - I guess I should calculate some "hours"
to get something like that done :)
(and that's why I asked about the best way to get started)
I could stay with making my first simple calculations with a
spreadsheet for the first months, and get into OFBiz.
Just, I really have no guess how long it will take to make some simple
accouting stuff - as I said, the many possibilities OFBiz has are
really overwhelming... with grails I'd say I'd have a first step of
what I currently need within 2/3 days.

Henning

[Henning Sprang-3]

Hi again, answering myself:

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Henning Sprang
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
> tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
> anymore.

BTW: I found those again: these are the ones here:
http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/developing_overview.php

The Hello worlds things are about what I was searching for... maybe
I'm going to get the Book from packt pub, too.
I didn't look at external sites today... I get the impression, OfBIZ
is right for me, I just have to fight the fears I hade because it
looks so large

But Adrian is right, that is an opportunity to make a partial
distribution/simple, small business edition based on Ofbiz, if I find
the time to do that.


Henning

[Henning Sprang-3]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:08 AM, BJ Freeman <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I concur with adrian. Get something like the intuit products.
> I use home and business for my consulting.

That is not an option for me. I'm a free software hardliner...
especially when it's for my own usage.
As consultant, I'd not recommend it to my customers that it's better
for them to pay 2 months of work get something minimal working instead
of buying some closed source standard stuff with many features running
on windows, but for myself It's clear where I go to ;)

> not sure what you require for CRM but ofbiz has the ability, just not as
> evident at first sight.

For a start just some address management, and the ability to get email
adresses by "tags", so I can mail customers information based on their
interests, things like that.
And then - whatever comes to my mind.

> as far as size, what do you expect from an Enterprise level software?
> :)

Yeah, I know. Compared to what's in there in terms of features - it's
a multi-functional framework.
It was not meant as criticism. But the description (buy vs. build vs.
ofbiz for example) sounded like a walk in the park - it probably is,
but it's a really large park :)

> As a guide, read the Data model books.

You mean the data model resource book from there:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Related+Books

Or the wiki guides on OFBiz entities and stuff?

Thanks,
Henning

[Sven Wesley]

I buy few programs, but with all the tax rules and their changes every year
I'm pretty satisfied to pay a yearly license fee for my booking/accounting
program. It's bargain money and it is worth it.

I wouldn't rely on the accounting part in Ofbiz only. I see it as a
supplement to gather and get base data to the economy staff, not as a fully
blown economy suite for your company.

Regards,
Sven


2008/12/2 Henning Sprang <[hidden email]>

> Hi again, answering myself:
>
> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Henning Sprang
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
> > tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
> > anymore.
>
> BTW: I found those again: these are the ones here:
> http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/developing_overview.php
>
> The Hello worlds things are about what I was searching for... maybe
> I'm going to get the Book from packt pub, too.
> I didn't look at external sites today... I get the impression, OfBIZ
> is right for me, I just have to fight the fears I hade because it
> looks so large
>
> But Adrian is right, that is an opportunity to make a partial
> distribution/simple, small business edition based on Ofbiz, if I find
> the time to do that.
>
>
> Henning
>

[Henning Sprang-3]

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:42 AM, Sven Wesley <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I wouldn't rely on the accounting part in Ofbiz only. I see it as a
> supplement to gather and get base data to the economy staff, not as a fully
> blown economy suite for your company.

That's exactly what I need.
I want to collect some rough numbers about what's going in and out,
and hand it over to my tax consultant regularly.

Piece by piece I want to add stuff as she tells me more details how
she needs the figures presented.
That's about where I wondered if I'm better off with a quick shot
defining my own datamodel and hacking some simple reports, or if I
should get into OFBiz.

Now that I talked about it with you guys, maybe something in between
is it: for a first step, I'm better off having some simple grails app
for entering my stuff and getting it out in a way my tax consultant
needs it (I could to that with Openoffice and macros, but I'm not the
macro programmer) - but in the long term, I can learn OFBiz, so I
don't have to reinvent the wheel, for example all the thought that
went into making a data model for customers/businesses/persons etc.
And that can even lead to products and jobs

Henning

[BJ Freeman]

You can do service and project management in ofbiz

Henning Sprang sent the following on 12/1/2008 3:41 PM:

> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:08 AM, BJ Freeman <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> I concur with adrian. Get something like the intuit products.
>> I use home and business for my consulting.
>
> That is not an option for me. I'm a free software hardliner...
> especially when it's for my own usage.
> As consultant, I'd not recommend it to my customers that it's better
> for them to pay 2 months of work get something minimal working instead
> of buying some closed source standard stuff with many features running
> on windows, but for myself It's clear where I go to ;)
>
>> not sure what you require for CRM but ofbiz has the ability, just not as
>> evident at first sight.
>
> For a start just some address management, and the ability to get email
> adresses by "tags", so I can mail customers information based on their
> interests, things like that.
> And then - whatever comes to my mind.

By tags no, but you can create many mailinglist and use the marketing
component. maybe you can add the tag feature.
you do have requests from customer.  and any emails are linked to the
emails the customer has in their profile.
Take a look at the My Page, soon to be my portal.

>
>> as far as size, what do you expect from an Enterprise level software?
>> :)
>
> Yeah, I know. Compared to what's in there in terms of features - it's
> a multi-functional framework.
> It was not meant as criticism. But the description (buy vs. build vs.
> ofbiz for example) sounded like a walk in the park - it probably is,
> but it's a really large park :)
:D
>
>> As a guide, read the Data model books.
>
> You mean the data model resource book from there:
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBADMIN/OFBiz+Related+Books
>
> Or the wiki guides on OFBiz entities and stuff?
the data model books will give you how the data is linked together
the wikis add what is OFbiz specific
then you have the webtools built in to ofbiz. I find the Artifact
feature to be a real help to drill down through ofbiz.
>
> Thanks,
> Henning
>
>

[Anil Patel-3]

Henning,
If you are looking for document to learn developing applications with  
Ofbiz then this link should be of help http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/OFBiz+Beginner%27s+Development+Guide+Using+Practice+Application 
.

If you are determined to use Ofbiz then community will help you do it.  
Most of what you need can be done using ofbiz. Will it be possible for  
you to document your requirements somewhere on wiki, may be here http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Pre-Canned+Solution+for+IT+Services+company 
.

I am sure your requirements can be implemented in Ofbiz in far less  
time then implementing them using Grails.

Regards
Anil Patel



On Dec 1, 2008, at 6:32 PM, Henning Sprang wrote:

> Hi again, answering myself:
>
> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Henning Sprang
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
>> tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
>> anymore.
>
> BTW: I found those again: these are the ones here:
> http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/developing_overview.php
>
> The Hello worlds things are about what I was searching for... maybe
> I'm going to get the Book from packt pub, too.
> I didn't look at external sites today... I get the impression, OfBIZ
> is right for me, I just have to fight the fears I hade because it
> looks so large
>
> But Adrian is right, that is an opportunity to make a partial
> distribution/simple, small business edition based on Ofbiz, if I find
> the time to do that.
>
>
> Henning

[David E Jones-3]

The place I've started gathering requirements (initially in story and  
statement form) is here:

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Universal+Business+Process+Library+Index

There are two placeholders there for specific types of companies that  
I think would apply to this:

        • [Story of Professional Services Company]
        • [Story of OFBiz Service Provider]

Nothing has been done with these yet, so the field is wide open for  
contribution... :)

-David


On Dec 2, 2008, at 1:33 AM, Anil Patel wrote:

> Henning,
> If you are looking for document to learn developing applications  
> with Ofbiz then this link should be of help http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/OFBiz+Beginner%27s+Development+Guide+Using+Practice+Application 
> .
>
> If you are determined to use Ofbiz then community will help you do  
> it. Most of what you need can be done using ofbiz. Will it be  
> possible for you to document your requirements somewhere on wiki,  
> may be here http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBIZ/Pre-Canned+Solution+for+IT+Services+company 
> .
>
> I am sure your requirements can be implemented in Ofbiz in far less  
> time then implementing them using Grails.
>
> Regards
> Anil Patel
>
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2008, at 6:32 PM, Henning Sprang wrote:
>
>> Hi again, answering myself:
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 11:19 PM, Henning Sprang
>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>> I somehow think I saw some more small getting started
>>> tutorials/howto's or examples these days, but now I can't find them
>>> anymore.
>>
>> BTW: I found those again: these are the ones here:
>> http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/developing_overview.php
>>
>> The Hello worlds things are about what I was searching for... maybe
>> I'm going to get the Book from packt pub, too.
>> I didn't look at external sites today... I get the impression, OfBIZ
>> is right for me, I just have to fight the fears I hade because it
>> looks so large
>>
>> But Adrian is right, that is an opportunity to make a partial
>> distribution/simple, small business edition based on Ofbiz, if I find
>> the time to do that.
>>
>>
>> Henning
>

[Shi Jinghai]

Henning,

I have read all the emails under this topic. I think you've made a clear
business plan. OFBiz can be the core engine of your service business
longtime. From several people to over 10 thousand staff, the business
model is unchanged for service.

I'm writing a Learning Curve component which not only calculate the
workefforts you have done, but also have the ability to forecast an
effort you'll take for a new job. I think it can help you more powerful
than those macro players :).

The forecast function is based on the following theroies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
http://cost.jsc.nasa.gov/learn.html
http://fast.faa.gov/pricing/98-30c18.htm

Mathmatically, I'll use Linear regression to calculate the forecast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_regression

I hope I can find some time to complete this component before Chinese
new year and give it as a new year gift to OFBiz community.

Regards,

Shi Jinghai/Beijing Langhua Ltd.
 

在 2008-12-02二的 00:53 +0100，Henning Sprang写道：

> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 12:42 AM, Sven Wesley <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > I wouldn't rely on the accounting part in Ofbiz only. I see it as a
> > supplement to gather and get base data to the economy staff, not as a fully
> > blown economy suite for your company.
>
> That's exactly what I need.
> I want to collect some rough numbers about what's going in and out,
> and hand it over to my tax consultant regularly.
>
> Piece by piece I want to add stuff as she tells me more details how
> she needs the figures presented.
> That's about where I wondered if I'm better off with a quick shot
> defining my own datamodel and hacking some simple reports, or if I
> should get into OFBiz.
>
> Now that I talked about it with you guys, maybe something in between
> is it: for a first step, I'm better off having some simple grails app
> for entering my stuff and getting it out in a way my tax consultant
> needs it (I could to that with Openoffice and macros, but I'm not the
> macro programmer) - but in the long term, I can learn OFBiz, so I
> don't have to reinvent the wheel, for example all the thought that
> went into making a data model for customers/businesses/persons etc.
> And that can even lead to products and jobs
>
> Henning