For many small businesses, open source software represents an unexplored gold mine. When you run a small business, budgets are always tight. While you need many of the same kinds of software that larger businesses need, you don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend on that software like bigger companies do.
The open source community offers accounting, office productivity, project management, communication, customer relationship management and other types of software for SMBs for free. If your small business doesn't have any technical people on staff and you're worried about support, you can purchase services or use many of these applications on a software as a service (SaaS) basis -- and you'll still usually pay a lot less than you would for comparable commercial applications.
It's important to note that many of these open source apps really are comparable with their better known counterparts. They usually offer most of the features small businesses need, and many even read and write files created with proprietary software. For example, both OpenOffice and LibreOffice can open and save Microsoft file formats, so your partners, clients and suppliers will never know you aren't using Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
Below, we've updated our annual list of open source replacements for popular small business software. You'll find some new entries, as well as plenty of noteworthy applications that we've featured before. If you have another recommendation for our list, feel free to make note in the comments section below.
Replaces: QuickBooks, Sage Peachtree
Boasting more than 80,000 users, TurboCASH calls itself "one of the world's first fully-featured open source accounts packages for small business." It offers multi-user and multi-company capabilities with features like debtors, creditors, general ledger, full stock control, invoicing, bank reconciliation, trial balance, balance sheet and income statements and full reporting and analysis. Operating System: Windows.
The open source community offers accounting, office productivity, project management, communication, customer relationship management and other types of software for SMBs for free. If your small business doesn't have any technical people on staff and you're worried about support, you can purchase services or use many of these applications on a software as a service (SaaS) basis -- and you'll still usually pay a lot less than you would for comparable commercial applications.
It's important to note that many of these open source apps really are comparable with their better known counterparts. They usually offer most of the features small businesses need, and many even read and write files created with proprietary software. For example, both OpenOffice and LibreOffice can open and save Microsoft file formats, so your partners, clients and suppliers will never know you aren't using Word, Excel or PowerPoint.
Below, we've updated our annual list of open source replacements for popular small business software. You'll find some new entries, as well as plenty of noteworthy applications that we've featured before. If you have another recommendation for our list, feel free to make note in the comments section below.
Accounting
1. TurboCASHReplaces: QuickBooks, Sage Peachtree
Boasting more than 80,000 users, TurboCASH calls itself "one of the world's first fully-featured open source accounts packages for small business." It offers multi-user and multi-company capabilities with features like debtors, creditors, general ledger, full stock control, invoicing, bank reconciliation, trial balance, balance sheet and income statements and full reporting and analysis. Operating System: Windows.
For the complete article go to http://www.datamation.com/open-source/75-open-source-replacements-for-popular-small-business-software-1.html
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Small Business Inventory Management