Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Free ERP Tool - PostBooks



As the worldwide financial crunch chokes companies badly across industries, methods to trim down costs at the moment are on top of corporate agenda - pc training courses large corporations or SMEs. One of several expenses related to business operations is the one about software licensing. When you're looking at computerization, there isn't any better solution than an Enterprise Resource Planning system which includes traditionally been a higher ticket software investment mostly away from small business owners. With Free, this trend is to exchange as there are many different free ERPs available which businesses will use to automate and centrally manage their dispersed accounting, purchasing and inventory activities by way of a single integrated interface. These ERPs mostly have a relatively paid support package along with a free version so that you can support those having purchasing power, together with people that just have it to start with with in-house expertise. The sort of ERP is PostBooks for the contour of PostBooks.

This guide walks from the installation process during a Ubuntu 7. 04 (and ) system and brief introduction on the system. Realize that unlike other software systems that will be all set to pursuit download, ERPs degree of much more configuration mainly because systems commonly are not self-contained. They create usage of a database application to help keep lots of user-data and reports etc, whereas the front-end provides interface to get in transactions. Often, ERPs are web-based, meaning they are worth giving a web-server while the entire application resides. Because of this, there will probably be multiple files to download Body for that main program, for you may very well be database scripts to develop necessary tables etc. For time, these installation steps will be facilitated though.

Installing PostBooks in Windows:

Window installation is actually simple process as the installer has database installation together with sample data. Simply download and install when using the single executable file and run using account admin.

Installing PostBooks in Ubuntu:

Uubntu installation requires database along with little bit of manual configuration. Here's how:

Step 0 - Install PostgreSQL

This is really a perquisite database for PostBooks ERP. Set it up aided by the following command:

sudo apt-get install postgresql-8. 1 postgresql-contrib-8. 1

Step 1 - Download Postbooks

PostBooks offers multiple varieties downloads that will suit different needs. By way of example, complete installers, separate client and database, documents, videos possibly even virtual machine version which suggests willing to run picture of a thorough pre-installed system in Virtual Box and VMWare formats. This video guide walks by a common and straightforward for a test run installation where everything resides during one system. Advanced users can install database separately for a different machine enabling multiple client access across network.

Download this particular 3 setup files using wget command:

The tar. bz2 declare Linux

Quick Start file

init. sql file

Note which the wget command downloads during the existing folder.

Step 2 - unpack the compressed file

Use the next command which unpacks the downloaded archive and helps to create a folder with name as the file.

tar xvfj PostBooks-2. 2. 0Beta3-Linux6. tar. bz2

Step 3 - Configure PostgreSQL and place this for PostBooks

Open the file /etc/postgresql/8. 1/main/pg_hba. conf in Text Editor and watch a final section titled # TYPE DATABASE USER CIDR-ADDRESS METHOD. Here, comment out all of the 3 uncommented lines by placing hash character opposite them and replace all of them the underlined lines as shown below:

Existing portion of the file:

# TYPE DATABASE USER CIDR-ADDRESS METHOD

# "local" is designed for Unix domain socket connections only

local all all ident sameuser

# IPv4 local connections:

host all all 127. 0. 0. 1/32 md5

# IPv6 local connections:

host all all:: 1/128 md5

Updated portion of the file (updates shown as underlined)

# TYPE DATABASE USER CIDR-ADDRESS METHOD

# "local" is designed for Unix domain socket connections only

#local all all ident sameuser

local all all trust

# IPv4 local connections:

#host all all 127. 0. 0. 1/32 md5

host all all 127. 0. 0. 1/32 trust

# IPv6 local connections:

#host all all:: 1/128 md5

host all all:: 1/128 trust

And then restart the server using:

sudo /etc/init. d/postgresql-8. 1 restart

Now create PostBooks database

sudo su postgres

psql -U postgres -f init. sql template1

createdb -U mfgadmin mfg

pg_restore -U mfgadmin -d mfg postbooks_quickstart. backup -v

Note these commands really need to be executed out of your same folder in which the downloaded files reside.

Step 4: Start PostBooks

From the folder where PostBooks is unpacked, make use of the following command to set up PostBooks:

. /PostBooks

Username and password is: mfgadmin

Overview of PostBooks

As is the situation with any ERP, PostBook catches the eye of all major operations of one's up-and-coming small to medium-sized production company. It can possibly serve other firms say in services sector or retail as simply sub-set of modules are expected and rest become automatically redundant. The most crucial interface contains menus at top describing each functional sort of business that this serves. This can include Products, Inventory, Purchase, Manufacturing, CRM, Sales and Accounting. Start with System menu to configure basic structure within the organization. Sub-menu Master Information allows the consumer to define calender, currencies, fx rates and departments etc. Second important area to configure is sub-menu Configure Modules where each specifics of handling earlier listed modules may be set. Like, while handling inventories, a check mark may be placed available to disallow purchase order receipt if ever the quantity is different from an order, so they can pop-up a stern warning if for example the difference is there to a user-defined range. Similarly, there are various configuration products which can define business rules - which include allowing sales discounts or not satisfying you. General Ledger are generally defined in depth through Accounting module configuration by setting format of GL hierarchy showing main segment, profit center, sub-accounts as well as their character lengths, in addition to defining mandatory accounts for instance retained earning, exchange rate difference and discrepancy accounts.

Once the modules are configured for basic characteristics and parameters, the second task would be to define Maser Information each relevant module with its own menu. This entails module specific information. To illustrate, in Products, units of measurement, product category and product class constitute its master information. For accounts, consist of banking accounts, cost and expense categories etc. Under each module there are sub-menus for reports and analysis which causes this ERP quite comprehensive anyway.

There is also free ERPs around for Ubuntu additionally - and a lot of masters are operated with Windows and mac besides. With ample documentation, user manuals, and online with free streaming demos available, small enterprises can take your time in researching the free choices to save kids having a custom made ERP.

Options which might be explored include MyERP5, OpenBravo, Compiere etc.

OpenSource ERPs came a considerable ways from just posting concept towards a reality being used by corporations across the world - with and without paid support. Its ironic that OpenSource solutions haven't been explored on the fullest extent. But since complied, it holds numerous promise starting right around the os in this handset level and becoming an adult into the higher level of specialized applications that include ERPs.

Note: Lots of commands specified for as root user.

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