Hello all,
I've noticed that there is a lot of mails on the developer list that are
more appropriate for the user list. The developer list is to discuss code
and very technical issues related to building on the Mifos platform. The
user list is to discuss features, problems with installation, general
direction of the product. Conversations like the one below are best for
the user-list.
I'm not trying to stifle communication-- I'm just worried that a lot of
people on the users mailing list are missing some great discussions about
the product!
Going forward, Ed and I will in when appropriate to remind folks to post to
the right mailing list.
In regards to this thread-- let’s direct future posts on this thread to
mifos-users. If you respond to this thread, please drop the mifos-developer
email from the cc line.
Keep all the great discussion going!
Emily
*From:* Ed Cable [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Tuesday, November 22, 2011 9:37 AM
*To:* Mifos software development
*Subject:* Re: [Mifos-developer] Accounting / Financial module in Mifos
You can learn more about Mostfit at this website including a description of
their team: http://mostfit.in/
Regarding other alternatives, our strongest integration point with a
stand-alone accounting package is with Tally (which is documented on the
wiki).
The other accounting integrations that have
For the reasons that Krishnan cited earlier, we have not aimed to build
this accounting functionality directly into Mifos and have recommended
integrations with existing accounting systems which are documented here:
http://mifos.org/documentation/accounting-integration.
Molly stands out because it offers up the basic functionality needed while
providing the flexibility that is required to be an potential solution for
the various geographies and accounting standards MFIs must follow.
I'll let Krishnan and others respond to other questions.
Ed
On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 8:33 AM, iberia <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Krishnan,
Thank you very much for your reply.
- Where How can I see demo and source code (if it is open source)?
- Is Molly in production mode? Could you please give me phone/Skype of
the organizations who are using Molly?
- Who is Mostfit team?
Dear Members,
Molly is very interesting but do we have other alternatives?
Dear Developers,
How much LOE is needed to add in Mifos "other expenses" or "double entry
infrastructure" based on single or distributed transactions.
Regards george.
p.s. for decision time is very important.
On 11/22/2011 4:00 PM, Krishnan Mani wrote:
Hello George,
Thank you for your persistent quest for more information on Molly and
in general, concerning support for accounting integration in Mostfit.
I am responsible for providing more information on this, as i promoted
this idea in the first place, and demonstrated the *possibility* of
its use with Mifos, a few weeks ago, of course, with a lot of support
from the community
I will talk more about the concept in this email (while Molly is a
specific implementation of this concept). I will also try to respond
to your specific questions on Molly, but later in this email
It is observed that the concerns of the accountant (for e.g., what
accounts do we debit and credit for money that changed hands today?)
differ from those of staff that runs microfinance operations (who are
the clients that we gave loans to, and received repayments from
today?), though they essentially pertain to the same underlying
activities
Furthermore, accounting is, by necessity, localised to every part of
the world, and follows practices for reporting, regulatory compliance,
taxation, etc. that are both local (likely to change with
jurisdictions every few hundred miles) as well as temporal (possibly
with every annual budget). Therefore, accounting packages that have
succeeded in different parts of the world are the ones that have
successfully adapted to local needs, and continue to remain compliant
and "accepted by the trade"
Add a further dollop of the flexibility inherent in double-entry
accounting (the same set of transactions can be conceivably accounted
for in many equivalent yet different ways), and its the last straw on
the camel's back.
Furthermore, it is likely that the accountant will always need to use
an external accounting package to keep track of routine payroll,
depreciation of fixed assets, investments, accounting unrelated to
microfinance operations, etc.
It is too much for the MIS to try and accomodate the differing needs
of both the accountant as well as its routine portfolio tracking
needs. As is evident today, most MIS products for microfinance have
chosen to specialise in the latter, and not quite excel at the former.
(quick disclosure: i am a member of the team that develops another
open-source MIS: Mostfit, and we are not much farther along either in
this respect)
Therefore, it was proposed that the part of the application (or the
application) that performs accounting can be independent of those
parts of the MIS, such as loan portfolio tracking that capture
information from operations. A contract is sought to be defined (in
other words, an API) for standardising information to be exchanged
between parts of the application(s) that perform loan portfolio
tracking and that perform accounting.
It is also, easier for an application that is focused on accounting to
communicate in a standard manner with a large number of "third-party"
accounting packages (the Peachtrees, Quickens, Sages, Pastels,
Tally...s) of the world, as they are exchanging information that is
"apples to apples", to put it crudely, i.e., just charts of accounts,
ledgers, postings, balances, etc., albeit in slightly different
formats.
The exchange of information between a Mostfit instance and a Molly
instance is the "integration" that is being referred to in the limited
documentation you found.
It does appear that this approach is very promising, and has been
demonstrated to some members of the Mifos community. As you can guess,
the Molly implementation is in an early stage and is not in active
production use today at any MFI.
There has been a delay on my part in publishing more information on
this approach, a specification for its function, a standard for the
information interchange between Mostfit and Molly, as well as a
roadmap for an implementation, and milestone dates. I will begin by
publishing a specification as an RFC for this on the 3rd of December.
Other information may follow soon.
Your questions are excellent. Please keep them coming. Perhaps, if
memory serves me right, you also have many dreams for open-source MIS
for microfinance. Let us work together to bring them to life. Thank
you!
Best regards,
krishnan mani,
Skype: krishnanm75
phone: +91 98 500 540 37
Pune, India
On 11/22/11, George IBERIA <[email protected]> <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
- What do you think about Molly? Why Molly? Is there any alternative?
- Where molly is working? in which MFI ? could you please provide
contacts? Is it OK if i will contact them ?
- When Molly will be implemented in Mifos? Is it possible to see the
road map?
- Who is developing? Were is a design? Is it accepted by System
Architect ? Will this included in next version and migrated for any new
versions?
- How can we help/accelerate process?
Sorry for so many questions . may be you had such discussions before , so
please just send me reference to materials/docs.
Thanks. george
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