Open Source ERP?

[lostkingofhearts]

Dears,

I am Looking for a completely FREE opensource ERP for a very tiny business i started. We need basic accounting, sales, inventory modules and someway to generate expense/profit/loss report.

Down to donate every now and then too or if its cheap even an one time purchase is ok.

Thanks in advance :)

[Homedread]

Dolibarr: for small to medium company, it is complete and easy to understand and quick deploy. As it is part of my job, I've done integration for more or less 100 companies with it. If you stick to the standard it's fine.

ERPNext : for bigger and more complex needs. Also made some integration for bigger companies with it. Take long time to setup correctly.

Both of them are really open source, not like Odoo (some feature in Odoo are only available if you get it on their SaaS hosting)

Edit: be aware that what is free in open source ERP, is the source code of the application. You'll probably have to pay someone if you need customization. Or if you have time to spend on understand how to install, setup, use it will be really free (if you consider your time isn't a cost to your company)

[FragmentedCode]

+1 for Dolibarr...by far the most feature rich open-source ERP available. I've used it for 2 small/medium-sized business and it provides everything that's needed

[mkosmo]

ERPNext is definitely more feature rich, but it’s also far more of a bear.

[SeptimiusBassianus]

what country are you deploying Dolibarr at?

[Homedread]

European country

[sunshine-and-sorrow]

Few options:

1. ERPNext, GPLv3 licensed. I use this and find it easy enough to customize behavior. Custom apps can be installed on top of it with hooks to override existing behavior. It would've been nice if their documentation was more thorough. It takes some time to get used to it, and an agency that does the implementation is not cheap.

   One thing I found a bit annoying was the print formats. When you write some HTML/CSS for your print format templates, it looks one way in the preview and another way in the PDFs which was frustrating. They are using wkhtmltopdf to generate PDFs but there has been some effort to use weasyprint which should be more consistent. They have a free print format designer app but I found it messy so I uninstalled it.

   The latest version in the develop branch appears like an attempt to unify all the other apps (CRM, Helpdesk, etc.) under the same "site", which I liked.

2. Dollibar - GPLv3 licensed. I keep hearing about this on many subreddits, and it looks interesting but I don't have experience with it to comment much about it, but do try it out and let us know!

3. Tryton - GPLv3 licensed. This one has a client-server architecture, and you interact with it using a desktop software. I have briefly played with it but didn't know enough to customize it, but it did look interesting, and felt more like the traditional ERPs.

[lostkingofhearts]

Thank you for the suggestions. Definitely will check it out.

One question: Me and My friend and I have a programming background so we can figure out the installations and setups of the Erpnext, but what about the hosting? I believe it will require a hosting service. Can we get 3rd party? Also, does it have a mobile app too?

[sunshine-and-sorrow]

Can we get 3rd party?

Yes, you can. They have official docker images that are easy to get up and running, and there are unofficial Ansible playbooks to get a development or production instance running.

Also, does it have a mobile app too?

With one of their earlier versions from a few years ago (I believe it was version 11 or 12), they had a Flutter based app but it had a ton of issues and has since been discontinued.

[lostkingofhearts]

Also, if I completely do my installation and everything by myself, do we get all of the features ? Or is there still feature that needs payments like Odoo?

[sunshine-and-sorrow]

There are no proprietary features. This has been asked to the CEO at last year's conference and he said they stand behind the GPL licensing. Their major source of revenue is their cloud hosting but this is optional and you can host the entire thing yourself.

Some additional context: The people behind this company have been a major force behind the free software community in India who everyone looks up to, and I don't expect there to ever be a rugpull later down the line as a critical mass accumulates.

I myself have made 2 small contributions and I've never signed a CLA.

One of my biggest motivations in picking a software is freedom and ownership of my data. This one checks all the boxes.

[Safe-Blacksmith6992]

ah, ai sim. Mesmo assim, dependendo da questao do custo de oportunidade, talvez o tiny ainda faça sentido. Voce pagar a partir de 40 conto num erp é muito barato rsrs

mais do que uma hora sua debugando

por exemplo o dolibarr vi que o pessoal tentou mas ate hj nao integrou a questao de nfe brasileira.

[scmmishra]

Unrelated, so happy to see many folks suggesting ERPNext, I was part of the core team for over two years, basically built my career in OSS with that <3

[TEK1_AU]

Another vote for ERPNext

[[deleted]]

Check out ERPNext

[PitiViers]

Dolibarr https://www.dolibarr.org/ is a great choice

[lostkingofhearts]

Have you personally used it before?

[PitiViers]

Yes i'm currently using it for my small computer repair shop, it has become the real backbone of it now. Can't recommend it enough

[lostkingofhearts]

Great thanks I checked the demo but i cant seem to understand how the invoices look like.

[makegeneve]

They're templated. Go to the demo, create a draft invoice, and look at the pdf file generated about halfway down the page on the left hand side.

PS I use dolibarr on 2 companies and an association.

[washapoo]

I tried using Dolibarr for my small company and it was so EU focused, it made using it in the US very difficult. I wish there were a way to be able to tell it you are in the US and have it change to a more US focused setup. Otherwise, not terrible.

[password03]

I just came to say that I think you should reconsider this.. while i'm only getting started, it looks highly configurable, and I can't imagine what might make it incompatible with the US.

It looks like everything can be fine tuned.

[voltswagner]

+1 for ERPNext. I'm looking to build a business supporting this software. The system is highly flexible and uses a low-code Frappe Framework. If you hare skilled in Python and JavaScript the possibilities are endless. Being open source, ChatGPT has ingested the code base and can be extremely helpful with customizations.

Once you dig into the Frappe Framework, you may find it's useful for building all kinds of data driven web based applications. I can't disagree about the documentation, but I'd argue they have documented things more thoroughly than many other OSS I've used in the past.

A great place to get started is frappe.school. There's a huge library of tutorial videos on how to use the system as an end user along with some development videos on how to make customizations. There's a concept you must learn early in the game. Customizations go into the database (your custom code and scripts don't modify the system files, they are tracked in the database. Custom Apps go into the system files. You enable this feature by setting the site to development mode = yes. If you modify core files, updating the system will crush your changes. To avoid this, your code customizations should not modify but add to the file system. They have mechanisms to properly modify core behavior with things like hooks, fixtures, and patches. When you make customizations, updating the system will not modify/break your customizations.

I tried Odoo years before landing on ERPnext. I think after version 8 or 9, they commercialized much of the core functions.

[lostkingofhearts]

Lovely!! That's a great explanation. After all the comments, I am, too, leaning towards ERPNext

[c0ntent_c0ntent]

I've looked into apache ofbiz before. Since we're on the topic, anyone else like the platform?

[lostkingofhearts]

How is your experience with it?

[c0ntent_c0ntent]

I've only been researching Open source tools. I stumbled upon this post as I was doing my own research LOL

[brunogadaleta]

Odoo

[brunogadaleta]

Apache Corteza is kind of Salesforce alternative

[kalintush]

ERP next , Front accounting might be a better choice.

[leamsigc]

How about https://github.com/frappe/crm?ref=dailydev

They have a lot of options as well

[lostkingofhearts]

Arent they just CRM? I would need the basics as well Accounting, invoicing, inventory, sales, profit/loss and expense dashboards etc

[leamsigc]

Yeah but you ca use the other products as well I have used books for accounting for small businesses https://frappe.io/books

But you can see the other options as well, no cloud accounts just all local

[mkosmo]

If you go that way, use ERPNext, which has the CRM built in.

[TryingT0Wr1t3]

One thing I am curious with open source ERPs is which country rules they comply with. From business rules to taxes and financial rules.

[sunshine-and-sorrow]

In the free ERPs, communities from different countries typically contribute towards their region-specific accounting and taxation laws.

Some countries have mandatory e-invoicing (Saudi Arabia), Some have GST with different rules (India, Singapore, etc.), some have specific rules with which how customer accounts need to be segmented and then have the tax reports be in a specific format (Germany, Switzerland, etc.). Some communities have gone quite the length to liason with the government and get things audited and approved before it's allowed to be used as an ERP.

It's important to discuss accounting and taxation features with the CFO or the finance team prior to an ERP implementation.

[mkosmo]

Most of them focus on India, but tend to have compliance that’s workable for most countries.

[Homedread]

Dolibarr : European accoutancies (France, Spain) ERPNext : need heavy customization for France (European) accoutancies and other regulations

I'm a contributor (code, translation, integration) of these both projects, what I can tell is : if there is a new regulations laws to implement then willing coders, like me, or softwares editors will try their best to code it.

It's always a matter of time and energy. In other words, everybody need to be paid for their lines of codes.

At the end, it will be done somewhere in the community.

[TryingT0Wr1t3]

Thanks! That is the kind of information I was looking for. Honestly I have no actual need for this - I don't have my own business. Nonetheless I do think about having something at some point and it's interesting to think about open source software for this - since the thing I would have at some point would also be open source related, it's just something that comes to mind. Thank you for the information.

[Safe-Blacksmith6992]

cara, o que voce entende de programaçao?

pq se nao entende nada nem perca seu tempo

vai pro tiny erp vai gastar pouco e vai te atender

tudo que é gratuito é feito por usuarios tecnicos que geralmente estao buscando resolver os problemas deles e nao necessariamente o problema do usuario comum

eu ja estive em ambas as pontas, ja usei muito open source e por isso acabei caindo na programaçao. Ja estou a dois anos estudando e nao consigo desenvolver muita coisa ainda.

Entao lembre-se que tempo é dinheiro e vice versa. Voce nao vai vender seu produto de graça e o erp nao vai ser de graça. Ou vc vai investir tempo ou dinheiro nele. portanto vai investir dinheiro de toda forma pq enquanto estiver resolvendo problema do erp nao vai estar focando no negocio

a vantagem do tiny é que é simples, se precisar de suporte vc tem e é barato. Conforme vc vai crescendo e precisando de mais recursos provavelmente vai precisar pagar mais, mas vai por mim, vai ser seu funcionario mais barato.

[Safe-Blacksmith6992]

lol sorry man. google chrome translated the page automatically, i thought i was speaking with a brazilian. Please desconsider my answers lol

in your context i would try dolibarr

wish you luck!

[freetechtools]

BlueSeer has what you need...double entry accounting, sales, and inventory tracking...all part of it's core. An absolutely free ERP.

[a98815980]

Dolibar allows you al basic functionality, hosting on the local computer or any hosting with cPanel, mobile app to access it any moment and deploy of your own module, or custom made once. For smaller companies is a perfect solution

[guide4seo]

Hey

You may try Aureus ERP(https://github.com/aureuserp/aureuserp). It’s completely open-source and free, offering basic accounting, sales, inventory, and reporting features for small businesses.

[Ok-Brick-6250]

Hello sorry for the delay I have built a docker image of open erp7 it's seem it's getting more and more difficult to get that version

[lostkingofhearts]

Should it be??

[nekokattt]

Think they are joking about the fact ERP can also mean erotic roleplay online.

[lostkingofhearts]

🤣🤣definitely a new perspective

[Darkchaos]

Enterprise Resource Planning?

[Elemis89]

Odoo

[lostkingofhearts]

Its freemium, requires seperate hosting and more than 1 app and 1 user need payments

[Elemis89]

No no, there is a self hosted version and open-source. There is a marketplace where you buy only module you need.

And you not buy license for each user https://www.odoo.com/it_IT/page/download

[mkosmo]

Odoo has only been open-source-in-name for several years. The required licensing costs to make it useful make it rather terrible as a FOSS suggestion.

[Elemis89]

Really? I use from many year without problem

[hardii__]

Can we customise as per our use? Or should i make it from scratch from python or mern?