Open Source Accounting Software Solutions FAQ

Does My Enterprise Need New Accounting Software?

Has your company outgrown your current accounting system? A solid accounting application can take your business to the next level by providing financial reports and metrics that help you make profitable decisions for your enterprise. Accounting software can track important financial details and quickly provide you with reports that would be time consuming to prepare manually. Perhaps you are interested in tracking the sales margin of a new product or reviewing the success of a recent marketing campaign? With the right accounting solution, you'll always get the information you need to effectively manage your business in today's rapidly changing global marketplace.

It takes some time and effort to choose the right accounting software for your company. In addition to becoming familiar with the features of a myriad of accounting software programs, you will also need an excellent understanding of your enterprise's business operations to make an educated decision about which application best suits the requirements of your enterprise. Make sure to gather input from your managers to get an understanding of how various tasks are performed in your enterprise so that you clearly understand what your business requires from accounting software. As you examine the new features of various accounting applications, take some time to consider your current business processes. Now is a great time to streamline the workflow of your enterprise.

What Makes Aptean Compiere ERP's Open Source Accounting Software Better?

Aptean Compiere ERP open source accounting software can help your company adapt to meet the evolving needs of today's rapidly changing business environment by providing you with the financial information you need to make educated decisions that will create a secure future for your enterprise. Aptean Compiere ERP provides all the features you'd expect from a high-end accounting application, plus it's completely integrated with outstanding ERP and CRM functionalities. Aptean Compiere ERP is fully scalable and comes as a complete package. You can simply implement the features your business needs today, while feeling secure in the knowledge that you've invested your time and energy in an application that will support your business as it grows. Aptean Compiere ERP was designed to be flexible, so features you have not yet implemented can be easily hidden from view, creating a simplified interface. In fact, Aptean Compiere ERP allows each User to have their own seperate interface based on the tasks they perform.

More Reliable Data

The best business application in the world can't overcome inaccurate, incomplete or incorrectly classified data. With Aptean Compiere ERP, you input customer, vendor, and transaction data only once. Aptean Compiere ERP shares this information across all departments and users authorized to access the information. Aptean Compiere ERP's intelligent architecture ensures that you are getting the most up-to-date information available whenever you need it.

Professional Open Source Accounting

Open Source solutions like Aptean Compiere ERP offer numerous benefits over commercial software, like low cost of ownership and unparalleled product control. Aptean Compiere ERP is true open source accounting. This means that Aptean Compiere ERP is available free for everyone to download and it cannot be bought or merged out of existence. Our open source accounting gives you freedom from vendor lock-in, and the security of knowing your investment in Aptean Compiere ERP will last as long as you want it to.

Aptean Compiere ERP pairs those open source benefits with professional training and services. Our rapidly growing, worldwide network of Aptean Compiere ERP Partners provides a wide variety of services, including: turnkey solutions, implementation, customizations and extensions, maintenance, upgrades and version migration.

Accounting Software Designed for the Global Economy

Aptean Compiere ERP is ready for the global economy. A key part of Aptean Compiere ERP's Model-driven Application Platform is the ability to customize your ERP system and accounting features to the realities of your global business, including support for one or many of:

• Organizations

• Currencies

• Accounting Standards

• Languages

• Tax Laws

Because of this global-ready design, your customized Aptean Compiere ERP business solution is easier to maintain and to extend. Equally important, implementing global features at the platform level rather than at the application level results in greater stability and reliability for your application.

Web- and Window-based Interfaces

Aptean Compiere ERP creates an environment free of restrictive rules that limit your business processes. Its model based architecture enables you to be in control of every aspect of the ERP application and continue to adapt, update, add new features, and extend Aptean Compiere ERP to fit the needs of your company. Our open source solution is platform independant to suit all types of businesses - and we've added a new Web browser based solution to access your Aptean Compiere ERP solution from any Web-accessible client. The Aptean Compiere ERP Web architecture utilizes the latest generation of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) technology to deliver robust functionality, usability, responsiveness and personalization through a Web browser.

Fast and Flexible Implementation

Unlike other ERP applications, with Aptean Compiere ERP the decisions you make today CAN be changed tomorrow. All of the information provided during implementation can be adapted or modified at any time to meet the changing needs and demands of your company. By choosing Aptean Compiere ERP, you can reduce hidden organizational, on-going-integration, operational and maintenance costs

What Are the Costs Associated With Accounting Software?

Accounting software varies greatly in both total cost and in pricing structure. Comparing costs between different applications can be difficult since some products will include certain modules as standard while others charge for them separately.

There are 4 basic levels of accounting software. From smallest to largest they are: entry level, small to medium business (SMB), small to medium enterprise (SME), and ERP. Normally lower-category products have fewer features and reports and are less expensive than the larger ones. If your company is very small, you may not miss these features for a while, but if you select a product with too little capability, you may end up having to perform additional accounting tasks on other applications which, in the long run, are usually more expensive than buying a system with the features built in. Using multiple software products to support low-level accounting applications also increases the potential for 'dirty' data, since the data usually must be entered separately into each application.

Aptean Compiere ERP can help you keep your costs low and still provide you with all the feature benefits that big businesses enjoy. This is possible because Aptean Compiere ERP is open source software, which frees you from the burden of the initial product licensing fees that accompany all proprietary ERP applications.

Unlike many open source software products Aptean Compiere ERP offers support service for your business. The right support edition for your business depends on a number of factors such as the size of your organization and the support services your business requires. Four Aptean Compiere ERP editions deliver exceptional business value and meet a broad variety of ERP functionality and support needs.

Aptean Compiere ERP Enterprise Edition is for companies that need the most sophisticated enterprise-class functionality, usability and support from their Compiere ERP solution. Enterprise Edition includes complete Community Edition functionality plus Multi-server support, Management Dashboards, Visual Dictionary Editor, and Dynamic Web Services support.

Aptean Compiere ERP Community Edition is for ERP and Java developers who want to take advantage of Compiere's adaptable open source ERP software. Compiere Community Edition binary and source code are freely distributed. The Community Edition does not include migration tools or support from Compiere, Inc. or Compiere Authorized Partners. Compiere Community Edition is distributed under a GPL open source license.

How Long Will It Take To Implement Aptean Compiere ERP’s Accounting System?

The actual installation of Aptean Compiere ERP software can be done in a day or two by experienced IT staff. However, keep in mind that implementation of any ERP solution also includes importing old data from various sources into the new system, the integration and testing of the ERP system with existing corporate software, the training of employees on the use of the new system, and the completion of any enterprise-specific customizations. Enterprises also usually find it worthwhile to take time at the beginning of the ERP implementation process to review their current business practices, seeing where they can be streamlined now that they are no longer be 'locked into' a specific business flow with a restrictive software package. The whole process traditionally takes several months to a year depending on the size and complexity of your business.

Aptean Compiere ERP's flexibility makes the ERP installation process much easier than a similar installation with traditional ERP applications because, unlike other enterprise applications, with Aptean Compiere ERP the decisions you make today can be changed tomorrow. All of the information provided during implementation can be adapted or modified at any time to meet the changing needs and demands of your company. Other ERP systems don't allow these on-the-fly changes. The result is that with these traditional ERP applications, changing anything - whether something complex, like your chart of accounts or even something as simple as a product search key - can require expensive and time consuming modifications or even complete product reinstallations.

The Aptean Compiere ERP platform embodies the promise of rapid application development and rapid customization. No big bang deliverables. No lengthy trial and error designs. No costly interruptions to your business. Change the system and immediately get confirmation from the user that you delivered what they want.

How Do I Upgrade Aptean Compiere ERP’s Accounting Software?

At Aptean, we are constantly working to add new features to our product that will help your business save time and money. It's easy for you to keep up to date with these new and improved features because Aptean Compiere ERP created another break-through in ERP - an easily upgradeable application! While many traditional ERP vendors sold the promise of free upgrades, in reality hardly any businesses were able to take advantage of them because they had spent large sums of money customizing the software for their industry and thus had voided their support contract. But easy upgrades aren't just a sales pitch with Aptean Compiere ERP. Aptean Compiere ERP was built to make customizations and extensions simple without impacting the migration process. Now you can keep up with all the latest product features without sacrificing your custom extensions. Upgrading to a newer version of the Aptean Compiere ERP platform will not overwrite or undo previous customizations.

If you are using an older generation ERP system, any of the customizations described above will be significantly more difficult to complete. Changes will often require specialized personnel who have a deep understanding of previous customizations made to your system and who have expertise with a proprietary scripting language. Even then, applying the changes can take days and require downtime on your production system.

Does Aptean Compiere ERP’s Accounting Solution Support E-commerce?

Aptean Compiere ERP systems can help your e-commerce business thrive. With the Aptean Compiere ERP Web Store you can easily offer both physical and digital merchandise in a secure, customizable environment. The Web store components utilize cascading style sheets to ensure a consistent look-and-feel within the store and your external web site. Our Web store is fully integrated with our ERP solution so that it is always up to date with the latest products and inventory information. No synchronization or extra integration work is required. We also provide the ability to run sales, promotions, and discounts on either a global or per customer basis. With a Web store that's fully integrated into your ERP system, you'll feel comfortable knowing that your inventory, customer contact information and financial transaction information is always current and easily accessible across your entire enterprise.

Does Aptean Compiere ERP’s Accounting Software Support Multiple Locations/Users?

Aptean Compiere ERP allows users all over the world to connect with your ERP system, so geography is no barrier to your business. Plus Aptean Compiere ERP also features language packs and the ability to customize both the Web Store and the application itself to suit your language requirements.

Aptean Compiere ERP is an excellent solution for managing a global enterprise. Traditional ERP applications weren't developed for the complexities of the global market. Gaps in functionality arise when these features are simply layered on top of existing code. However, Aptean Compiere ERP was designed with global markets in mind, featuring multi-currency, multi-tax, multi-costing, multi-accounting and multi-organizational functionalities. Our accounting solutions cater to the needs of your enterprise, no matter what currency or schema you use. Aptean Compiere ERP even provides the flexibility to account in one or more Accounting Schema in parallel.

Because of this global-ready design, your customized Aptean Compiere ERP business solution is easier to maintain and to extend. Equally important, implementing global features at the platform level rather than at the application level results in greater stability and reliability for your application.

You'll experience the benefits of global-ready design immediately through lower implementation costs. Over time and as your business grows in many different directions, the global-ready capabilities enables significantly more functionality along with reduced maintenance costs.

What Platforms Does Aptean Compiere ERP Support?

Unlike many accounting solutions, Aptean Compiere ERP is not platform or Operating System specific. The open source Aptean Compiere ERP client will run on any Java enabled platform, while the Professional and Enterprise Editions offer a new Web browser based solution that allows you to interact with your Aptean Compiere ERP solution from any Web-accessible client.