The difficulty of Aussie small businesses adopting Linux

There are many reasons people are stuck on Windows.

For small businesses the main reason is their accounting software.
Like it or not, since the introduction of GST and BAS the days of the shoe-box accounting have disappeared. Every business that wants to keep accurate financial records requires an computerized accounting system.

In Australia, The introduction of GST and BAS has made it difficult for these same people to move over to Linux.
The two most popular Small Business Accounting packages are MYOB and QuickBooks. Both products support the Australian market and handle submissions to the ATO.

Many small businesses look for software that can handle base accounting (less then 25 invoices a week) and an integrated simple payroll module that can pay their employees (1-5 typically).

Both QuickBooks and MYOB operate as closed-source commercial software that runs on Windows (and on Mac - in the case of MYOB). They also integrate heavily into Microsoft Office.

Both business models expect customers to fork our between $500 - $800 for the initial purchase, and anywhere from $200- $500 annually to get 'updates'. For any small business this is a hefty investment just to keep up with the legal requirements of running their business. Calling for support can also attract additional fees on top of the yearly retainer.

As such, many are fearful to move on, but have a love-hate relationship with their accounting software provider. They feel cheated and ripped off (and rightly so). This duopoly has created a handsome cash-cow for both software makers.

The current extortion model used by MYOB and Quicken is best explained by Turbo Cash's explaination (a GPL Windows Accounting package). Unfortunately TurboCash is Windows software and contains no Australian payroll module.

Unfortunately, I am yet to see an OSS Linux accounting software that handles all the features required for an Australian business:

1. Handles Australian Taxation - including GST and BAS reporting/lodging
2. Handles Australian Payroll - including PAYG and Superannuation

The introduction of both these two options would see thousands migrate off Windows (it's often the only reason cited for not running Linux), and adopt a new accounting package.

There is both Ledger-SQL and LedgerSMB (a fork of the former) that handle accounting and can be customized to handle GST. Yet, they don't do anything to address BAS reporting/lodging or have a payroll module. As such, both are unsuitable for the Australian SMB market without further heavy lifting.

Their is commercial software like SAGE AccPac available, yet it's quite expensive and more geared towards a medium sized business and thus out of the price range for most small businesses.

One OSS project that did look indeed promising was SYMBOL (Surf Your Money Books On Line). It was written by an accountant from Western Australia and licensed under the BSD license.

I have been in Email discussion with the developer Edward Metcalfe, but it appears he has now moved on from the project and as such the project has stalled. Looking at the CVS repository the last update was unfortunately 13 months ago.

However, the software is indeed functional and delivers on the two items listed above (Australian Taxation/Payroll). Whilst you would need to update the PAYG tax tables (no real show-stopper), it should do the job admirably. ComputerWorld actually ran an article on SYMBOL in Februrary 2007.

Those interested in SYMBOL, will find it is a web-based application so accounting can be down via a regular browser (making it suitable on either Mac/Windows/Linux clients) It runs on a PostgreSQL backend and uses Perl/CGI for the front-end. It also is multi-user based. (One thing software like MYOB and Quicken charge an arm and a leg for!)

The fear of running SYMBOL though in it's current form is that it is unmaintained. It's likely the current government or subsequent ones will indeed look at overhauling the payroll and corporate tax systems (as opposed to just an implementation of the Goods and Services Tax). This would mean that any software a small business adopts would need to address these modification.

The ATO has worked to provide great documentation on the complex tax scheme we have in Australia for software developers. Their Software Developers Website gives test case scenarios and formulas to write compliant and competing software.

I'm in two minds:

1. Do I run SYMBOL and either start maintaining it or fork it?
2. Do I use a lot of the program logic, and spawn a completely new project?

Ideally I would love to see a AJAXed based web-version of the application with a modern interface using either the Yahoo UI or the Dojo Toolkit's Dijit and DojoX interfaces.
Either solution would provide an excellent interface and provide the user with an experience that matched a local fat client. Using a web framework like Django and a PostgreSQL database underneath, would make for a solid backend.

I think there is a market for an excellent OSS product to capture the market and knock off this duopoly. However I suspect it will take some committed individuals to pull it off. From the grumblings you hear frequently from small business owners there is a ready market to ditch their over-priced software once a viable and supported solution arises.

Here are some interesting facts about the Australian Small Business Market:

• There are about 1.2 million small businesses in Australia employing around 3.3 million people.
• During the past decade, small businesses have created an estimated 660,000 new jobs.
• 42% of all goods exporters are small businesses.
• 25% of the Australian GDP (estimated in 2006 at $1 trillion dollars) comes from small business.

That's a lot of potential users of an OSS product!

I suspect a lot of OSS developers do a fair amount of moon-lighting and as such require a way to invoice for their work. (Consulting may be your day time job also to pay for the bills, and OSS coding your passion and after hours work!).

So what are your thoughts?
Is there enough interest in getting up an OSS Accounting+Payroll solution for Australian small businesses?