KWLUG Meeting: Monday, May 4 2009

GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
... GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses.

I'll show you how to create accounts, how to import transactions from your bank, Do transfers and generate reports.

GnuCash has a special place for me as it was my epiphany to the value of Open source:

I bought Quicken in 1998 and used it until 2003 when I got a new computer. When I tried to reinstall Quicken it asked me to register. To my surprise the registration didn't work anymore. The URL no no longer existed. The only option was buying the newest version. Needless to say, 5 years of personal expenses records were locked and out of reach unless I forked up the money.

I had "played" with Linux on and off since the early days as a nice curiosity but not until then it did sink what Freedom really means.

Yes, Quicken still has nicer graphics and maybe some advanced features, but putting it on the balance against owning my own data, freedom certainly wins.
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The host for this meeting was acant.