FrontAccounting

This page is a work in progress starting with FrontAccounting 2.3.1. Everything about FrontAccounting looks the same as webERP.

Installation

Use a computer with Apache, MySQL, and PHP installed. Create a directory for the FrontAccounting Web site. On Windows you add the site name to the Windows hosts file and the Apache httpd-vhosts.conf file. Linux has equivalents. You can update the files using Webmin, cPanel, and other programs.

FrontAccounting requires InnoDB and InnoDB is standard in modern releases of MySQL, in fact it is in every version since the invention of sliced bread. If you do not have InnoDB, update to the current release of MySQL.

FrontAccounting requires some settings in PHP that were made standard so long ago that we had to submit change requests for PHP on sheets of slate because no one had invented sheep, the main ingredient in making parchment.

Download frontaccount-2.3.1.zip from frontaccounting.com/wb3/pages/download.php. The download is 1.5 MegaBytes ad expands to 625 files using 6.5 MB. Expand into public_html or htdocs or www in your Web site.

I set up the FrontAccounting local test Web site as frontaccounting.example.com then visited http://frontaccounting.example.com/ to start the FrontAccounting installation process. You get the option to install in about 10 languages. The PHP version has to be >= 4.3.3. OpenSSL has to be installed.

Step 2

Step 2 of the installation process asks for details about the database, language options, and COAs. A COA is a chart of accounts. Select the COA option.

Step 4

You get a long list of sample chart of accounts. There are two for Australia, one decribed as 4 digit, and the other for a service company. I select the service company.

Step 5: Company Settings

Company Name: You can use 30 characters, not enough for my company name.
Admin Login: Defaults to admin. I changed it to Peter.
Admin Password:
Reenter Password:
Select Chart of Accounts: Defaults to the selection from step 4.
Select Default Language: Defaults to English

Use

The Australian chart of accounts looks workable. I tried to start a financial year a few years ago to take up information from there. The information is locked by financial year with 2008 closed completely. I cannot start recording from the first transaction of a current customer, making a lot of the reporting useless. This is a typical problem with software designed for accountants instead of businesses. Perhaps I will go back to a custom application already in progress.