GnuCash

Updated on Jan 19, 2024

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Initial release 1998		Stable release 2.6.15

Original author(s) Robin Clark - X-Accountant, Gnumatic (Linas Veptas) Developer(s) GnuCash development team Repository github.com/Gnucash/gnucash Written in C, Scheme Java (Android App)

GnuCash is a free software accounting program that implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.'s Quicken application, but also has features for small business accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements.

GnuCash is part of the GNU Project, and runs on Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, macOS, and other Unix-like platforms. A Microsoft Windows (2000 or newer) port was made available starting with the 2.2.0 series.

History

Programming on GnuCash began in 1997, and its first stable release was in 1998. Small Business Accounting was added in 2001. A Mac installer became available in 2004. A Windows port was released in 2007.

In May 2012, the development of GnuCash for Android was announced. This is an expense-tracking companion app for GnuCash, as opposed to a stand-alone accounting package.

Features

Double-entry bookkeeping

Scheduled Transactions

Mortgage and Loan Repayment Assistant

Small Business Accounting Features

OFX, QIF Import

HBCI Support

Transaction-Import Matching Support

SQL Support

Multi-Currency Transaction Handling

Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios

Online Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes

Built-in and custom reports and charts

Budget

Bank and Credit Card reconciliation

Check printing

Small business accounting features

Invoicing and Credit Notes (Credit note functionality was added with version 2.6)

Accounts Receivable (A/R)

Accounts Payable (A/P) including bills due reminders

Employee expense voucher

Limited Payroll Management through use of A/Receivable and A/Payable accounts.

Depreciation

Mapping to income tax schedules and TXF export for import into tax prep software (US)

Setting up tax tables and applying sales tax on invoices

Technical design

GnuCash is written primarily in C, with a small fraction in Scheme. One of the available features is pure fixed-point arithmetic to avoid rounding errors which would arise with floating-point arithmetic. This feature was introduced with version 1.6.

The Android App for GnuCash is written in Java and does not share any code with the PC software.

Users

Users on the GnuCash mailing list have reported using it for United States 501(c)3 non-profit organizations successfully. However, the reports need to be exported and edited.

Slaw, a Canadian legal webzine, offered this advice to lawyers just starting out in practice, especially those who are trying to pay off student loans, "The GnuCash software...should present a great alternative for lawyers looking for a solid accounting system at low cost. Do not believe that open source software is somehow second-class."

In April 2011, the Minnesota State Bar Association made their GnuCash trust accounting guide freely available in PDF format.

Download stats

As of June 2012, Sourceforge shows a count of over 2.7 million downloads of the stable releases starting from July 2007 with GnuCash 2.2. Also, Sourceforge shows that current downloads are running at 13,775 per week. However, this doesn’t include other software download sites as well as Linux distributions that provide download from their own repositories.

Project status

Ohloh did an analysis of the source code repository and compared the commit activity for the two years before March 2012 and concluded that the project has a mature, well established code base, with increasing year-over-year development activity and a large active development team.

References

GnuCash Wikipedia

(Text) CC BY-SA

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