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While Linux has made great strides in terms of application availability in
recent years, one area where Linux is still quite weak is accounting
software. More than a few open source diehards still turn to Quicken,
QuickBooks and/or TurboTax when it comes time to do the counting up.
When the GPL'ed version of Quasar
Accounting was announced
last week by Linux Canada, Inc., we decided it was time to take a look to
see if Quasar could give Linux users the features they need to do their
accounting solely on Linux. We also interviewed Linux Canada's Phil
Tonnellier about the application, and the decision to release parts of the
application under the GPL.
The GPL'ed components of Quasar include its client and server accounting
software. The point-of-sale components are not available under the GPL and
require a commercial license. Still, the accounting software components provide
all the features necessary for users who need to use Quasar for small
business accounting.
Tonnellier said that the company chose to release Quasar under the GPL for
several reasons. First, he said that the company "wanted to give
something back" since the company had been using Linux for retail
systems since 1995. He also said that there is a bit of pride in the
product as well:
We believe in our product. We believe in the quality of the source code,
and we believe that FOSS is the future of software. We feel that Quasar in
GPL can be the leading FOSS accounting system for the world. There is a
desire to get more eyes on the code and more testers to make Quasar a
better product.
In addition, Tonnellier said that making the source code available was part
of trying to build a strong reseller network for Quasar. As for keeping
part of the code closed, Tonnellier said that the company's revenues have
been primarily derived from sales to retail businesses, and that
"most retailers requiring point-of-sale can easily afford the Quasar
license fees, and indeed they may feel better knowing we have an income
stream and will remain strong for them in the future."
Quasar requires a database backend, either PostgreSQL, Firebird or
Sybase. Since MySQL is also extremely popular with the open source
community, we asked Tonnellier why Quasar didn't support MySQL as
well. According to Tonnellier, they didn't feel MySQL was quite ready in
2000 when Quasar development started:
We felt that MySQL did not meet all of our requirements for handling
referential integrity and PostgreSQL actually failed some tests. Thus we
chose Firebird and Sybase to work with. Since then PostgreSQL and MySQL
have come a long way in features and reliability. But to be honest, we have
been so busy working on features that we did not revisit the use of
PostgreSQL and MySQL. With the release to open source, we did take another
look at PostgreSQL and created the interface. One day we want to do the
same for MySQL, but just have not had the time.
Since Quasar has long been a closed-source application, we asked what kind
of preparation Linux Canada had to do in order to release the code under
the GPL. Tonnellier said that it was more complicated than just throwing
the source out into the wild:
There is a tremendous amount of work to prepare for open source. Especially
when you consider that the work has to be done in addition to running your
regular business to maintain a revenue stream. We needed to make sure that
the code is presentable and easy to build. We needed to remove any third
party dependencies. We needed to figure out a way to earn a living after
open source. We needed to define all of our new support packages. We needed
to prepare the web site and all of the manuals. We needed to set up proper
mailing lists and support forums. We needed to ensure our Internet server
could handle the traffic and was properly configured.
How does Quasar compare with QuickBooks? Tonnellier noted that Quasar is
missing QuickBooks' payroll component, but that Quasar "has very
powerful inventory control, including auto ordering and merchandise cost
landing." A list of Quasar's features can be found on the Linux
Canada website.
This reporter downloaded the Quasar packages for SUSE Linux 9.2. and took
Quasar for a test drive. Linux Canada has provided source code and packages
![[Quasar screenshot]]()
for Fedora Core, Mandrake Red Hat, Slackware, and SUSE. We tested Quasar
with the PostgreSQL backend, which was a bit tricky to set up initially,
but once we got it working it was smooth sailing.
For Linux users who want an accounting package for individual use, Quasar
is probably overkill. However, the package has plenty of features that make
it attractive to small businesses that have to manage invoices, inventory,
purchase orders, vendor payments and so forth.
The interface was fairly intuitive, even though this reporter is decidedly
not well-versed in accounting. Quasar also includes an extensive online
help system so that almost every window and dialog has an associated help
file that explains the current operation. We did run into the occasional
glitch, such as the Item Lookup dialog. When searching for a Department for
an item, clicking on "New" brings up a "Department Master" dialog that
refuses to accept user input until the Item Lookup window is
closed. However, we didn't find many glitches of this nature.
Overall, Quasar is a decent accounting application that seems to have most
of the features that a small business would need, excepting the payroll
functions that Tonnellier alluded to. This is, of course, a feature that
many businesses will still need to have, and will probably keep many
businesses from turning to Quasar.
Despite the rough edges, we'd recommend that users evaluate Quasar to see
if it would suit their needs. Since Quasar is now licensed under the GPL, the Linux community
can help Linux Canada add the features and polish it needs to be
competitive with proprietary accounting applications. Given the number of
users and organizations that would benefit from, and have been looking for,
an open source accounting software system, Quasar shouldn't have any
shortage of developers willing to take it to the next level.
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