TurboCASH

TurboCASH
Developer(s) Pink Software
Initial release April 1985
Stable release 4.51 / 21 June 2012
Written in Delphi
Operating system Windows
Type Accounting
License GPL
Website www.turbocash.net

TurboCASH is a free software accounting software package,[1] developed by a project team headed by Philip Copeman, a South African. It has been continuously developed since April 1985,[2] and was released under the GNU General Public License in July 2003.

The biggest TurboCASH communities are found in South Africa, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, USA, Canada and Australia. It has been translated or partially translated into 23 languages including Afrikaans, Croatian, Dutch, Greek, Indonesian and Spanish.[3] According to the company, TurboCASH has a 'community of over 100,000'.[4]

It is aimed at the small to medium-sized business market, this places it between being a home finances package and being an ERP package. Its core function is a General ledger, posting transactions into accounts and producing financial reports. Plugin technology enables developers to extend the system.

It integrates directly with osCommerce, CRE Loaded and Zen Cart. Being originally developed in Delphi, it only runs natively on Windows, although the developers have released a version for Linux that runs under Wine.[5] A version that runs under CrossOver, and will therefore run on Apple Mac OS, is also under development.[6]

Criticism

TurboCASH version 3 stores its data in a Paradox/BDE database. Some developers have criticised this choice, suggesting rather to use a more modern SQL database, as they claim that Paradox/BDE is out of date and slow. The TurboCASH developers, however, claim that in a network of one to five users, TurboCASH's target market, Paradox/BDE works well and has long record of stability and easy installation.[7]

TurboCASH version 5.0 is based on the Firebird database and so is not subject to this criticism.[8]

TurboCASH has also faced criticism from some open-source advocates, as commercial applications are required to compile TurboCASH. There is a sub-project in place to remove these, as well as a sub project to implement the system in the Lazarus/Free Pascal environment.

See also

References

  1. "10 open source applications for Windows". Mybroadband.co.za. 2011-01-04. Retrieved 2013-08-11.
  2. "TurboCash | Centre for OpenSource Development". os.cqu.edu.au. 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  3. "Computerised Bookeeping Training Using TurboCASH". cecs.org.za. 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  4. "Home". Turbocash.net. 2013-04-23. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  5. "TurboCASH | Linux App Finder". linuxappfinder.com. 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2011.
  6. "TurboCash hits Linux, Apple : Tectonic - The Source for Open Source News". Tectonic. 2008-09-15. Retrieved 2013-08-11.
  7. http://www.turbocash-usa.com/TurboCASH-Multi-user.html
  8. TurboCASH Free Accounting Software-Open Source Accounting Software: Archive copy at the Wayback Machine

External links