[gnue-sb-discuss] Re: Purchase Orders for Utilities, etc.

[Stanley A. Klein]

At 11:21 AM 3/27/2003 -0700, Derek Neighbors wrote:
>Stanley A. Klein said:
>> In my view, the issue of whether GNUe should require purchase orders in
>> processing accounts payable is a business process issue in which GNUe
>> should be neutral but should be prepared to support all alternatives.
>> It is not for GNUe to determine whether any particular business process
>> should be followed.
>
>I think this discussion was cross posted between GNUe and GNUe-SB.  I
>would like to clarify that things and decisions that apply to GNUe may not
>necessarily apply to GNUe-SB.
>
>> The business processes of any enterprise using GNUe should be left to
>> the enterprise to determine.  We should give users the tools and
>> guidance for implementing their own decisions.
>
>Absolutely.  In GNUe-SB especially in early versions, there will not be
>the "intelligence" in all instances to accomodate this.  It is part of the
>"get somethign out the door" approach we are using and have made our peace
>with.  GNUe Proper should have the let the enterprise choose as its
>cornerstone of implementation however.  This is one reason why GNUe-SB was
>started.  We didnt want people to thing GNUe Proper was changing its
>ideals.
>
>> So GNUe shouldn't be "insisting" on anything, but should be surveying
>> the practices of enterprises, structuring itself to support the
>> practices it observes, and providing the flexibility and tools for an
>> enterprise to implement its own processes and practices.
>
>
>GNUe Proper should definitely not be insisting on anything, but by no
>fault of its own, GNUe SB might do dictation in some areas in order to get
>something working with out over complicating it.


I didn't notice the cross-posting until I saw the mesage in the gnue-sb
digest.  I've cross posted this response, but if anyone missed my original
response, let me know and I will post it to gnue-sb-discuss.

I think we need to be careful even in GNUe-sb to minimize any dictation and
to provide some amount of tailoring.  I suspect the only things we should
mandate are double entry bookkeeping and making sure the numbers add up on
split transactions (e.g., ones in which an overall expense is split among
several accounts).

For example, when I initialized QuickBooks 7 years ago, it asked me if my
business kept inventory.  As a consultant, I don't have any inventory.
Apparently, there are numerous kinds of businesses that also don't have
inventory.  Therefore, I have no need for an inventory subsystem and
GNUe-sb should not mandate me to have one.

GNUe-sb should also not be mandating that I enter purchase orders before I
do accounts payable.  There is no need to mandate extensive business
processes.  If a user wants more, we can add it later.

When I get some time I will make a list of the kinds of functions I use in
QuickBooks.  I think it will turn out to be fairly simple with minimal
business process constraints.

We can also provide functions that could be used multiple ways and let the
user decide whether to activate them and for what purpose to activate them.
 For example, I have three journals that I keep as spreadsheets and would
like to eventually incorporate under a GNUe-sb system.  I'm sure if we were
to work out the needed functionality, it could be generalized and applied
in multiple ways.


Stan Klein