Two More Free Software Programs for the Practicing Accountant

In a previous post I mentioned a couple of free and open source programs that can be used in any accounting practice. Today I will look at two further software packages that may help in the operation of a practice. The first is another accounting package, and the second is mindmapping software.

TurboCash

TurboCash is the first free accounting package that I used. It is a windows only program, but will work on systems running anything from Windows 98 on, and will run on older hardware as well. The package is very flexible and can be adapted to most commercial situations.

It can handle debtors, creditors, comprehensive stock control, VAT management, batch-entry system, multi-lingual interface, year-end financial statements, comprehensive reporting and analysis,
and bank reconciliations.

There is also a significant community and commercial support system available. The forum is a good source of information (but it appears to be down at the moment), and unlike many open source products, you can purchase support services.

Having use it I can say that it is quite intuitive, but I do find GnuCash easier to use.

Freemind

I really like using mindmaps as a way to think about projects, record meetings, study and a wide range of other applications. Freemind is a simple package that works on all of the major operating systems out there. If I’m honest (and I always am) it is not as polished as some of the commercial products out there, but that said you get used to its little quirks, and I love using it. Freemind needs Java to run so you need to make sure that you have it.

The great thing is that you can easily change colours, use clouds to group thoughts together, insert images, and use hyperlinks. This means that in addition to writing your ideas down, you can link out to useful websites or documents.