BigCapital - An open-source alternative to QuickBooks

[girish]

Online accounting software, built to automate business financial processes.

https://bigcapital.ly/
https://github.com/bigcapitalhq/bigcapital

[privsec]

YES! Absolutely this.

[avatar1024]

Anyone ever tried to package this? I notice we still don't have any good double entry accounting app on the store and this one seems very promising and committed to self hosting.

[timconsidine]

@avatar1024 The big issue with accounting software is supporting regional / national specifics. Wave pulled out of the UK because they chose not to to invest time and effort in it.

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BigCapital: UK & Europe Support Assessment
No, it's not US-only by design — it's a generic double-entry accounting platform with multi-currency and custom tax rate support. However, it is not yet properly production-ready for UK or European compliance.

What's missing for UK/Europe (beyond currency)
HMRC Making Tax Digital (MTD) submission — open feature request (#465), not yet implemented
VAT return filing to European tax authorities (e.g., Germany's ELSTER, France's DGFiP)
Country-specific chart of accounts templates — no pre-built UK GAAP, French PCG, German SKR, etc.
VAT on purchase bills doesn't post to the GL correctly — confirmed bug as recently as v0.25 (#1103), where VAT is dropped from journal entries entirely
No localized financial statement formats required by European jurisdictions
Bank feeds via Plaid — supports some UK/EU banks but coverage is incomplete vs. local alternatives like GoCardless/Yodlee

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I have written a mini-app to integrate with my FreeAgent professional software, but it is just automating bills submission and journals. Everything depends on the FreeAgent API.

If there's a UK focussed OSS accounting app, I'd be interested.

Another issue (in UK at least, maybe wider) is that tax authorities will only take submissions like vat payroll and reporting from approved software. Unlikely OSS will cross that bar.

But if you don't need it approved, just solo personal accounting, bar is lower.

[avatar1024]

All very good points I wholeheartedly agree with. I'm also UK based. AFAIK using approved software is only required for tax submission (vat and CT), for which I use a specialised software (TaxCalc). But I'd like to be able to offer clients an alternative to QB and Xero for day-to-day bookkeeping and preparing end of year accounts. Actually for many small ones we use Gnucash but it quickly reaches a limit when it comes to multi users and automation.

So I'm looking for something online and self hosted that allows multiple users, ideally accountants. Seemed like both BigCapital and Akounting could do the trick but I'm liking the BigCapital approach much more.

[timconsidine]

TaxCalc is excellent but heavy and not cheap.
I used to use it and moved away to FreeAgent.
Yes, you're right, HMRC-approved is only about submission VAT and MTD..
QuickFile also excellent and I think they target professionals with clients.

It's an interesting area, I might do some other searches later.

[LoudLemur]

it isn't on cloudron but odoo has country specific accounting. I cant remember if that module is proprietary or open source.

Probably the easiest option is to just be a multi-billionaire and not pay any tax.

[timconsidine]

easiest option is to just be a multi-billionaire and not pay any tax.

I know how to do the 2nd bit, can you help with the first bit ?

[robi]

@timconsidine Yes, set up no-incomet tax entities. Unincorporated.

[avatar1024]

Given the architecture of the app, does it look easy / difficult to package for Cloudron?

[timconsidine]

@avatar1024 my AI analysis said possible but not easy. But my AI is normally cautious.

Big question was whether it is single tenant or whether it should support accounting for multiple tenants.

It's not something I am looking to take on currently (not just initial build but also maintenance).