Ecommerce Integration for FrontAccounting by CartSpan
Higher capability, better value, better support!
Are you frustrated with the diminishing value and uncertain future of your current desktop accounting software? Some major software providers are starting to ‘sunset’ their desktop systems and steer clients into less-capable online systems. Others are steering clients into ‘hybrid’ desktop/online systems that sacrifice performance for somewhat improved anywhere/anytime availability. Remarkably, the price of these offerings has only increased while there has been no significant improvement in core functionality for the last 20 years.
The trend just described is somewhat analogous to the parable of the boiled frog. If you do nothing, you risk being manipulated into an environment where you face increased costs, decreased functionality, and less control over your own data. The later consequence is the most subtle and highest impacting as it impedes your ability to switch systems in the future. Perhaps it’s time to consider the seemingly unavoidable push into the ‘cloud’ environment, but doing so on your own terms.
The page you have just landed on introduces a hidden-gem in the world of open-source accounting software…FrontAccounting. A full-blown ERP (lite) accounting system at absolutely zero-cost. This is an incredibly capable piece of software, now supported by the CartSpan eCommerce integration.
During our investigation/development process, we were impressed with FrontAccounting’s feature-set and core functionality when compared to market-leading commercial desktop accounting packages. If you are considering a move to the ‘cloud’, consider the following aspects of FrontAccounting in your evaluation:
CAPABILITY: When we say ‘impressive’, we’re referring to inclusion of functionality that you would typically find in higher-end versions of commercial desktop accounting systems. Having the foresight to craft such comprehensive functionality on the front-end, the developers of FrontAccounting have effectively established a lightweight ERP system of extraordinary value. Here is a list of common capabilities by functional area that you can use to compare against your existing desktop systems as well as any online providers that you may be evaluating:
VALUE: Unbelievably, FrontAccounting is really ‘free’ and has been since 2007. FrontAccounting can save you thousands of dollars over the long-term. It has been downloaded well-over 100,000 times and is used by businesses worldwide. One caveat of it not costing anything is that you might need some assistance in performing the installation if you are not technically oriented. But don’t fret too much if you are not a ‘techie.’ If you already pay for hosting space for your open-source eCommerce platform, there are often 1-Click installers within your hosting Control Panel that you may not have noticed. Many popular hosting companies include FrontAccounting in this list of installers, but you might have to dig to find it. If not, you can still use a 1-Click installer service like Softaculous to manage the installation.
CREDIBILITY: FrontAccounting been downloaded well-over 100,000 times and is used by businesses worldwide. Need more convincing? Consider that FrontAccounting is one of the top-rated open-source accounting systems on SourceForge among users. Another often overlooked characteristic of open-source projects is how often they are updated; giving you an indication of how often patches and improvements are published. These systems and ratings can be found here: FrontAccounting Reviews on SourceForge
SIMPLICITY: Though comprehensive and feature-packed, a common-thread in the praise bestowed upon FrontAccounting by its users is, by far, simplicity and ease-of-use. The following sample comment from SourceForge illustrates a common sentiment:
“What an excellent, excellent project! We were looking for a simple accounting solution that was Linux-friendly, open-source and web-based but, most importantly, accepted and understood (interface-wise) by the staff. We spent a few months evaluating and testing “big” ERP solutions (Openbravo, Adempiere and OpenERP) and deemed all unsuitable for various reasons: too complex for our straight-forward needs and therefore costly to implement, too broken code-wise in one instance, weird licenses for Openbravo and openerp-web, interfaces slow and not liked.
Then we stumbled on FrontAccounting – simple with clean and fast interface, GPL-licensed. A bit inflexible but still we didn’t have to do too much coding to make it fit perfectly. In fact, I think we did less coding implementing FrontAccounting then we did just evaluating some other ERP solutions.
And another thing – the response from the user forums and bug tracker is absolutely great! Big thank you to the developers!”
Comments such as these are prompted by an interface with a clean, well-organized, tabbed structure and supporting functionality.
SPEED: FrontAccounting is fast! While extending CartSpan to support FrontAccounting, we observed extraordinary performance from the underlying MySQL database. Whether you are processing 1000 or 100,000 orders per/year, responsiveness within the user-interface, performance will be similar. This is due to how FrontAccounting polls for data and presents it on the screen. Users with extremely large company files dread selecting the ‘All Transactions’ option in their desktop accounting systems, potentially locking up the user-interface for hours. FrontAccounting avoids this altogether by presenting query results in ‘Pages’. So, whether you are searching for an order within the last month or one since the beginning-of-time, the response time will be similar. Another factor contributing to the speed of FrontAccounting is a well thought-out database architecture that is classically normalized and seeks to minimize the number of tables and associated columns. The owners of the project have done a great job of avoiding unnecessary complexity to keep everything light and fast.
SUPPORT: Consistent with the comments found in the SourceForge Project-of-the-Month article, “FrontAccounting is all over the Map”, we found FrontAccounting to have an active User Forum and very responsive to users getting started with the system. Don’t let the name of the article fool you, it’s actually intended as a pun to reflect the adoption of FrontAccounting by users all over the world.
INTEGRATION (eCommerce): If you have landed on this page seeking integration of FrontAccounting with your eCommerce platform, “Congratulations!”, you have arrived at the most capable connector available. If you are seeking to integrate FrontAccounting with any of the open-source shopping carts supported by CartSpan, you’ve hit the jackpot. Marrying open-source FrontAccounting with any open-source cart such as WooCommerce would make CartSpan (low-cost) the most expensive component in your high-powered business system; thus, making you a cost-management super-star.