The Software Freedom Conservancy has launched a fundraising or crowdfunding campaign for a FOSS accounting software for non-profit organizations (NPOs).

The need for such an accounting software “usable by non-technical bookkeepers, accountants, and non-profit managers” arose because NPOs are spending significant amounts of money for licensing proprietary accounting applications.

The goal of this fundraising campaign is to raise $75,000 USD that will be used to hire a full time developer to work on this application, with development to be completed in two phases – Phase 0 and Phase 1.

The task for the first phase, Phase 0, will be to study existing FOSS accounting applications and choosing the one most suitable to base the project on.

The second phase is when modification and improvement of the chosen codebase will begin, with the goal of creating an application with the following features:

  • Basic accounts payable/receivable (with invoicing)
  • Tracking and reporting of non-profit income types (related business income, unrelated business taxable income, donations, etc.)
  • Basic backup documentation tracking for expenses and payments
  • Basic bank statement reconciliation reporting
  • Basic annual audit preparation reporting
  • Ability to easily handle all these features on a project-by-project subset of the accounts, and to easily export and excise that subset from the system.
  • Multi-currency support and reporting

Read more about the campaign and how to donate here.