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Ask HN: Best, Simple, Free Web-based Bookkeeping/Accounting

17 points by mstefff ↗ HN
Hey,

Just looking for a simple free web-app for basic bookkeeping/accounting - revenues, expenses, etc..

Anyone know of any?

Thanks

20 comments

[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 62.9 ms ] thread
mstefff
Came across gobootstrap.com - pretty nice
TweedHeads
I learned something new today thanks to you and I thought I'd share it.

If you select a link then drag and drop it over the "New Tab" toolbar button in firefox, it opens the page in a tab in the background. Nice huh?

I knew you could drop it over the address bar, but I never wanted to leave the current page so I rarely used it that way.

Of course you have to have the "New Tab" button active in your toolbar, which I've always had since phoenix, and I wonder why firefox doesn't come with it active by default, but I digress...

dkokelley
Another way: If you have a scroll wheel you can middle-click on a link to open in a new tab.

I totally agree about the "New Tab" button being up by default. It's the first thing I do when I'm on another computer without it.

Edit: But that would only work if it was an actual link. Plain text doesn't work obviously.

ralph
You can also drop the selected text just to the right of the rightmost tab, left of the "scroll tabs right" arrow. When you're over the right spot, a down-pointing arrow appears indicating that a new tab will be created there. This actually works between any two tabs too, but the drop area can be smaller.
_b8r0
I would advise against anything free in this sector.

In fact.

We had Quickbooks, it was great, it was Windows only, it was one system only unless we paid an absolute fortune to upgrade to a network version (which was windows only, which wasn't workable due to our IT policy which allowed people to use non-Windows OSes).

We don't use Quickbooks anymore, nor do we recommend it. I would say we'd quite happily pay for a web service providing we can get the data out in a format we can use...

wheels
Best, Simple, Free: Pick any two. ;-)
drhowarddrfine
http://mint.com
jfarmer
The OP was asking about bookkeeping and accounting, not personal finance. He's going to want things like revenue, expenses, accounts receivable, etc.

Mint is pretty slick for what it does, though.

MicahWedemeyer
Any that are good at tracking losses? My company has a lot of red ink, but not a lot of revenue ;)
ghshephard
I know it's not a WebApp (at least last time I checked), but I'd recommend you go with the same product almost every small company in the world uses - Quickbooks. Everything else is just a niche player. Quickbooks will take you all the way to just before 500 employees and going public (Speaking from experience. ) Your financial software should be something you don't even think about. Quickbooks captures that model -plus, every accountant/bookkeeper in the world knows how to use it.

If you are dead set on having a webapp, and are planning on growing, the elements that people are looking for, books that are SOX clean, online expense and Purchase Requests, can be found in products like Netsuite.

Our company went the QuickBooks->Netsuite->OracleFinancials route. And, no matter _how many times_ I go through that routine, OracleFinancials _always_ ends up being a pain to deploy - no matter how much we pay the consultants to make it "smooth, pain free."

ryanfelton
I've looked at less accounting and played with there free trial. It was kind of mediocre. Most of these posted are invoicing solutions. Here are the other I've looked into:

http://liteaccounting.com/

http://gobootstrap.com/

http://www.netbooks.com/

http://www.freeagentcentral.com/

http://www.clarityaccounting.com/

From here: http://mashable.com/2008/09/21/270-online-business-tools/

dobesv
Ryan, thanks for the mention! I'd love to hear any comments you have about Clarity Accounting - we're working hard to connect with our customers and make it the best it can be.

If your comment is that it is also "mediocre" then so be it :)

-- Dobes Vandermeer Clarity Accounting Support http://www.clarityaccounting.com

[dead] ngerber
Please check out our SAAS small business accounting -http://www.numia.biz.

Simple and free. Always working on making it the best with your feedback. Thanks.