Features and Limitations

Before spending a whole lot of time and effort playing with Open Accounting (or paying for services), it might be prudent to review its known features and limitations.

Candidate Organizations

Open Accounting is well suited for use by professionals in private practice that bill for time, expenses, and jobs. Examples include consultants, creative professionals, educational diagnosticians, and lawyers. It is not suited for those needing specialized reporting, such as in a medical practice, or inventory management, such as in retail sales. The retainer billing feature can also be used by non-profit organizations needing to track member pledges.

Features

Expense, Job, Retainer, and Time Billing: forms are included to bill for time, expenses, and jobs. In addition, retainers at any period, say monthly, can be accommodated.
Account Statements: reports can be generated for one account or all accounts in an organization at any time. The statements are “live,” meaning any database change is reflected when a statement is printed.
Receivables Management: reports showing current balance and annual payment history for all accounts are provided. These reports can be run per contact or organization. A report showing only outstanding balances may be run at any time.
Automated Payment Processing: when payments are entered, the system automatically credits against transactions in priority order. Short and long payment exceptions are tracked.
Administration: forms providing direct access to the most common database tables are included.

Limitations

Built on Access: the system requires that Microsoft Access be installed prior to use. Thus Open Accounting cannot be used on Linux computers. It has not been tested on Office X for Apple.
No Inventory: although expenses can be billed, there is no reliable way of tracking inventory levels or accounting for any difference between wholesale and retail pricing.
Limited Reporting: the system provides comprehensive but limited reporting. Although Open Accounting is suitable for billing, many organizations will not find it suitable for other accounting purposes, such as tax accounting.