Basic Mysql and PHP accounting application

Bill picture Bill · Jun 25, 2010 · Viewed 14.5k times · Source

I am not a programmer, but I have been tasked with making a basic accounting app for a small business.

I was looking at pbooks, but I am not sure this is customizable enough for my needs.

I need to be able to count each day how many food items are sold, how many drink items, how many guests, and then tie orders of food and drinks to guests if it is a guest that purchases it.

Is pbooks customizable enough to do this? Using the live demo you do not seem to be able to generate reports just for dates, or for certain customers..., perhaps there is a better bookkeeping solution?

Otherwise, I think I have enough mysql knowhow to do this, and theh php code should mostly just be getting the queries right.

Right?

Additionally, can anyone recommend a live demonstration of such a system?

I have not been able to find any live demos where I can demonstrate how you can generate reports for a given time period, or show the total sales for a guest or such.

I need to demonstrate this to show why it is a much better solution that an ever expanding mess of an excel workbook....

Answer

Josh K picture Josh K · Jun 25, 2010

Hire a programmer

Seriously. It will cost less and be done faster and correctly. I would agree that just about anything is better then an Excel spreadsheet but a beginners rendition of an accounting application is not one of them.

Otherwise, I think I have enough mysql knowhow to do this, and theh php code should mostly just be getting the queries right.

Right?

Wrong

The PHP code will be much more complex then simply "getting the queries right."

Additionally, can anyone recommend a live demonstration of such a system?

I have not been able to find any live demos where I can demonstrate how you can generate reports for a given time period, or show the total sales for a guest or such.

If you can't install free, open source, community backed software on your own then you should not be tasked with this job.

Again, my suggestion would be to either hire a programmer who knows exactly what they are doing or seek support from the community for which projects you are interested in. This is not a discussion forum.