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GnuCash is an accounting program that implements a
double-entry bookkeeping system Double-entry bookkeeping, also known as double-entry accounting, is a method of bookkeeping that relies on a two-sided accounting entry to maintain financial information. Every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to a ...
. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.'s Quicken application, but also has features for
small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have a small number of employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being ...
accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements. GnuCash is part of the
GNU Project The GNU Project ( ) is a free software, mass collaboration project announced by Richard Stallman on September 27, 1983. Its goal is to give computer users freedom and control in their use of their computers and Computer hardware, computing dev ...
, and runs on
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
,
GNU GNU ( ) is an extensive collection of free software (394 packages ), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operating systems popu ...
,
OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...
,
FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...
,
Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...
,
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
, and other
Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...
platforms. A
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
(
2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...
or newer) port was made available starting with the 2.2.0 series. GnuCash includes scripting support via Scheme, mostly used for creating custom reports.


History

Programming on GnuCash began in 1997, and its first stable release was in 1998. Small Business Accounting was added in 2001. A Mac installer became available in 2004. A Windows port was released in 2007.


GnuCash for Android and GnuCash Mobile

GnuCash for Android was initially developed as part of a
Google Summer of Code The Google Summer of Code, often abbreviated to GSoC, is an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to contributors who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during the summer. , the program is ...
Project. This was an expense-tracking companion app for GnuCash, as opposed to a stand-alone accounting package, and is now discontinued. Currently, there are more than 100,000 downloads on the Play Store. In 2022 a companion version dubbed GnuCash Mobile is also available on the App Store and Play Store and unlike previous iterations was released under the MIT License. GnuCash Mobile is developed using Flutter. Beyond mentoring the original GnuCash for Android developer and providing some publicity there was no connection between Gnucash for Android and the GnuCash project, nor is there any for the current so-called GnuCash Mobile app.


Backwards compatibility issues

GnuCash maintains the ability to read older data files between major releases, as long as major releases are not skipped. If a user wishes to access historical data saved in old GnuCash files, they must install intermediate versions of GnuCash. For example, upgrading from 2.2 to 4.1 may not be possible; the user should upgrade from 2.2.9 to 2.4.15, then to 2.6.21, then 3.11, then 4.1. The other alternative is for users to export transactions files to a CSV format prior to upgrading GnuCash. Exporting of the account tree must be done as a separate step.


Features

*
Double-entry bookkeeping Double-entry bookkeeping, also known as double-entry accounting, is a method of bookkeeping that relies on a two-sided accounting entry to maintain financial information. Every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to a ...
* Scheduled Transactions * Mortgage and Loan Repayment Assistant * Small Business Accounting Features * OFX, QIF Import, CSV Import * HBCI Support * Transaction-Import Matching Support *
SQL Structured Query Language (SQL) (pronounced ''S-Q-L''; or alternatively as "sequel") is a domain-specific language used to manage data, especially in a relational database management system (RDBMS). It is particularly useful in handling s ...
Support * VAT/GST tracking and reporting * Multi-Currency Transaction Handling * Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios * Online Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes * Built-in and custom reports and charts * Budget * Bank and Credit Card reconciliation * Check printing


Small business accounting features

* Invoicing and Credit Notes (Credit note functionality was added with version 2.6) * Accounts Receivable (A/R) * Accounts Payable (A/P) including bills due reminders * Employee expense voucher * Limited Payroll Management through the use of A/Receivable and A/Payable accounts. * Depreciation * Mapping to income tax schedules and TXF export for import into tax prep software (US) * Setting up tax tables and applying sales tax on invoices


Technical design

GnuCash is written primarily in C, with a small fraction in Scheme. One of the available features is pure
fixed-point arithmetic In computing, fixed-point is a method of representing fractional (non-integer) numbers by storing a fixed number of digits of their fractional part. Dollar amounts, for example, are often stored with exactly two fractional digits, represen ...
to avoid rounding errors which would arise with
floating-point arithmetic In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic on subsets of real numbers formed by a ''significand'' (a Sign (mathematics), signed sequence of a fixed number of digits in some Radix, base) multiplied by an integer power of that ba ...
. This feature was introduced with version 1.6.


Users

Users on the GnuCash mailing list have reported using it for the United States
501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...
non-profit organizations successfully. However, the reports need to be exported and edited. In April 2011, the Minnesota State Bar Association made their GnuCash trust accounting guide freely available in PDF format.


Download statistics

As of July 2018,
SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...
shows a count of over 6.3 million downloads of the stable releases starting from November 1999 Also, SourceForge shows that current downloads are running at ~7,000 per week. This does not include other software download sites as well as
Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...
s that provide download from their own repositories.


Project status

Open Hub's analysis based on commits up to May 2018 (noninclusive) concluded that the project has a mature, well-established code base with increasing year-over-year development activity. Moreover, "Over the past twelve months, 51 developers contributed new code to GnuCash. This is one of the largest open-source teams in the world, and is in the top 2% of all project teams on Open Hub."


Notes


References


Further reading

* * *


External links

* {{Authority control Accounting software for Linux Cross-platform software Free accounting software Free software programmed in C GNU Project software Office software that uses GTK