PostBooks is an open source business software package that offers a total solution for managing your business, including fully-integrated accounting, CRM and ERP modules. Designed for businesses looking for an alternative to - or a growth path from - commercial desktop accounting packages such as Quickbooks and Peachtree, PostBooks rivals sophisticated commercial ERP platforms, offering higher quality at a much lower cost.
PostBooks, like most ERP applications, is organized by functional areas, or modules, described below. These modules are highly interconnected and integrated, but you can customize which modules - even which individual tasks - each of your staff is authorized to use.
The heart of any business system is Accounting, and the PostBooks Accounting module features a powerful General Ledger, which is tightly integrated in real time with the other modules of the system. You may define an unlimited number of Accounting Periods within each fiscal year. Financial Reports are completely user-definable, and the system's open architecture facilitates simple interfaces to third party applications such as spreadsheets, payroll, and fixed asset depreciation.
Order entry in the Sales module is where it all begins. Sales reps have complete visibility into real-time inventory availability and the production schedule. The system also allows for a rich array of pricing options, by Customer, Groups, Types, and Categories - as well as special promotions and sales, and the ability to throttle customer buying power by credit rating. Deep and rich historical sales data is available for detailed analysis across multiple time periods, using multiple variables.
The CRM (Customer Relationship Management) module adds more dimensions to the Customer picture - with a Universal Address Book that allows multiple Contacts and Addresses per Account, and allows Accounts to be Prospects, Customers, Vendors, Partners, even Competitors. Incident Management and To-Do List subsystems enable rich history and tracking of customer issues and communications. Opportunity Management tracks pre-sales prospecting and is tightly integrated with other CRM subsystems, as is Project Management, allowing you to associate Quotes, Sales Orders, Work Orders, and Purchase Orders with a particular Project - and track progress and individual Tasks within the Project.
Modules for managing Purchasing, Product Definition, Light Manufacturing, and Inventory are also included.
PostBooks uses the OpenRPT report writer and renderer as its embedded reporting engine. OpenRPT is an LGPL licensed open source project also administered by xTuple and hosted on Source Forge.
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