The quote hits close: I like open source, yet at work I am “hacking” an closed-source ERP/order processing/accounting/manufacturing etc. software.
The reason is valuing a stable reliable income over job satisfaction. As long as my customers, employers want to use this, instead of open-source competitors I am OK with it.
Why do customers want to use this ERP not the open source ones?
ERP has intrictate features not obvious to users yet crucially important. Consider your FIFO inventory valuation. Suppose you buy something with a purchase invoice, build it as a component into another product, move it to another warehouse, sell it, and then return from the customer as it was a mistake during invoice posting, so it comes back to inventory. And at this point you book another purchase invoice, a shipping / delivery cost for the original purchase which increases the cost / inventory value of your original purchase, and that cost should go through the whole chain eventually increasing the value of the finished product you just returned from the customer! This is the only way it is legal (in the EU at least) and it is HARD! Because there are software with a wide user base for 20-25 years and they still don’t get it right, have bugs in thus process and bugs here are fully UNACCEPTABLE because it means not something minor like your software crashing. It means something major like the earnings you put into your P/L (income statement) are completely wrong (as COGS is a big part of it) and the taxes you pay are wrong and you get fined and the CEO goes into prison.
Customers have no way of verifying this at a sales demo
They go for big establishes brand names, SAP Oracle Microsoft etc. They hope a hundred thousand companies cannot all have their earnings, P/L, income statement ,COGS, hence inventory valuation wrong so hopefully the big software houses do it right, and not buggy. Well, this is half true.
They are kind of right. I investigated back then two open source ERP, Compiere in 2004 and TinyERP turned OpenERP turned odoo.com in 2009 and they did not even TRY this process. There was no FIFO cost forwarding whatsoever! It was like you put in the purchase price of an item as a master data and job done. UGH.
The majors are still buggy in corner cases, at least as I can see from the feedback of others, and hands-on with the one I am working with
These are not acceptable bugs like OK Firefox is something crashing, so what. They are “NASA bugs”, things that Must Not Be.
Don’t confuse open source with free. There are companies who manage to sell open source software. Especially software that takes a lot of adaption to a particular use case of a company.
The quote hits close: I like open source, yet at work I am “hacking” an closed-source ERP/order processing/accounting/manufacturing etc. software.
The reason is valuing a stable reliable income over job satisfaction. As long as my customers, employers want to use this, instead of open-source competitors I am OK with it.
Why do customers want to use this ERP not the open source ones?
ERP has intrictate features not obvious to users yet crucially important. Consider your FIFO inventory valuation. Suppose you buy something with a purchase invoice, build it as a component into another product, move it to another warehouse, sell it, and then return from the customer as it was a mistake during invoice posting, so it comes back to inventory. And at this point you book another purchase invoice, a shipping / delivery cost for the original purchase which increases the cost / inventory value of your original purchase, and that cost should go through the whole chain eventually increasing the value of the finished product you just returned from the customer! This is the only way it is legal (in the EU at least) and it is HARD! Because there are software with a wide user base for 20-25 years and they still don’t get it right, have bugs in thus process and bugs here are fully UNACCEPTABLE because it means not something minor like your software crashing. It means something major like the earnings you put into your P/L (income statement) are completely wrong (as COGS is a big part of it) and the taxes you pay are wrong and you get fined and the CEO goes into prison.
Customers have no way of verifying this at a sales demo
They go for big establishes brand names, SAP Oracle Microsoft etc. They hope a hundred thousand companies cannot all have their earnings, P/L, income statement ,COGS, hence inventory valuation wrong so hopefully the big software houses do it right, and not buggy. Well, this is half true.
They are kind of right. I investigated back then two open source ERP, Compiere in 2004 and TinyERP turned OpenERP turned odoo.com in 2009 and they did not even TRY this process. There was no FIFO cost forwarding whatsoever! It was like you put in the purchase price of an item as a master data and job done. UGH.
The majors are still buggy in corner cases, at least as I can see from the feedback of others, and hands-on with the one I am working with
These are not acceptable bugs like OK Firefox is something crashing, so what. They are “NASA bugs”, things that Must Not Be.
Don’t confuse open source with free. There are companies who manage to sell open source software. Especially software that takes a lot of adaption to a particular use case of a company.