[ILUG] OpenERP demo server

[Michael Kennedy]

> I worked on a project where we implemented the ROS XML schema's
> previously, for something like VAT it is simple and quick but for the
> larger forms it is quite tedious eg corporation tax and income tax.

Yes, your experience ties in exactly with what I would expect.

And, just on the VAT support, an important aspect would be the internal 
VAT features in the app (rather than the extracts for Revenue). Eg, how 
to handle changes in VAT-rates, support for the Cash-Accounting schemes, 
support for exempt customers or suppliers, exported goods/services, etc.

> I would question though the value in having a completely integrated
> solution, I've been doing a demo test of openerp for a business and
> the goal is not to provide a full integrated accounts system but
> rather to use OpenERP for supply chain through to sales and as a sales
> support tool, dump invoice lists out of openerp for the accountant to
> import into their book keeping to handle all the tax compliance stuff.
>
> There are distinct advantages from a revenue audit perspective to not
> having a totally integrated solution/ Seems that it is an expectation
> of revenue that they can now take a complete dump of your accounts
> system to electronically analyse and they have put quite a bit of
> money into software for this purpose. If you run a fully integrated
> system you're a lamb to the slaughter and will be the largest repayer
> of bank bailouts for years to come, keep your accounting practices
> business unit focused and you're back to the playing court where you
> provide complete accounts and they do the footwork with a calculator
> in an audit.

Very good points, Harry. Thank you.

Also, the Accountant probably already has Accounting systems with 
whatever features (s)he requires - auditing/accounting features, links 
to ROS/CRO, etc, etc, (eg, Apex). In that case, the requirement would be 
to automate the transfer of the data/transactions from OpenERP to the 
A/c system, rather than to have to manually re-key the data. That should 
be quite easy, technically:
   - get the data out of OpenERP, perhaps in a CSV or "Excel" format
   - re-hash that into the structures needed for the Import options of 
the accounting systems.

> Another colleague of mine who downloaded the OpenERP package later
> than me was contacted by a partner in Kerry. They clearly got the lead
> from the OpenERP guys, but aren't listed on the site yet.

I also did not notice any mentions of Irish agents, etc, in my OpenERP 
searches.

>> But, in case it's a whole waste of time, first we'd need to ensure that
>> there's no other similar FOSS "Cloud" system out there with these features
>> already implemented!
>
> Not an issue. Everybody knows somebody who's had a hotmail / yahoo /
> gmail account hacked / hijacked. Translate that scenario to a cloud
> accounting solution. Until cloud solutions are based on strong token
> based authentication businesses would be mad to expose themselves to
> that degree.

Oooppss... I misled you - I was referring to the VAT features, etc, in 
OpenERP. I meant that we should try to check if someone had already 
implemented the VAT stuff, ROS interfaces, etc, in OpenERP (but is not 
here on ILUG), or if these features are already in some other FOSS/Cloud 
systems similar to OpenERP.

   - Mike