12.04.2008

FOSS: Flowcharting Software

I finally found a free and open source flowcharting software. And I found it by accident! The name of the software is DIA, and I found it by browsing through the SchoolForge.

Publisher's Description of DIA:

Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).

Flowcharting is very helpful for accountants specially in analyzing an organization's workflow. Now, I have the tools to creat a decent flowchart!

12.03.2008

WebERP and FOSS for SMEs





I've been using WebERP for around 7 months already. So far, the results are good. It is already fully functional and is the main software that I use in monitoring the finances of the law firm.

Currently, we are in the deployment of WebERP in a merchandising environment. Manual migration of subsidiary ledger data may be a chore specially for big companies with lots of receivables and payables, but the benefits could very well offset your efforts. Anyway, if you want to use the software at the start or onset of your business, it wouldn't be a problem because there would me no migration issues in having a clean start.

I am not well-versed in IT and programming but I learned about data importation and exportation through trial and error at the phpMyAdmin window. This is useful especially if you have a long list of customers and suppliers that you need to encode into the system.

Let me take this opportunity to invite you on December 13, 2008 @ the Dabawegnu Lab to know more about webERP and other Free and Open Source Software for Small and Medium Enterprises.