Rosi, I think you really need to consider approaching a commercial software developer. Software is available with this functionality, maybe not in the form you propose, but there are commercial solutions out there: https://www.linbis.com https://lp.descartes.com/aljex-c-v1 https://www.logitudeworld.com https://allotrac.com.au http://smartfreight.com https://www.magaya.com
It is not that what you propose may not be useful or meet a need in the market for free software, but that the development team for GnuCash is largely part time, have other jobs, retired etc. There are many core issues in GnuCash which need addressing to keep it viable with the functionality it currently has and barely enough people with the expertise and experience necessary to do that let alone undertake a major development project on top of that. Your comment: "Tell me if I'm wrong: the biggest problem software or web developers meet is the proper definition of the processes they have to implement. Projects are assigned by owners and managers, who are focused on different things - business flow and not the actual operations flow. " pretty well explains the need for a systems analysis team to engage with the FF industry in researching and defining those processes to develop the appropriate digital solutions, particularly when coping with international operations where legal jurisdictional problems can be complex. Gnucash might have individuals with the necessary systems analysis capability but they are most likely already committed. GnuCash is doable because the core of accounting is well developed and doesn't change much and has well developed international standards that most countries are pretty close to even if the haven't adopted those standards and GnuCash addresses that core requirement. It doesn't tackle customisation for individual requirements except by remaining flexible enough that those requirements could be met outside GnuCash. The other problem you mention is "interest". If one of the GnuCash contributors was sufficiently interested, generally because they are involved in the industry, you might strike it lucky. There is certainly no harm in canvassing the forum to see if that interest does exist. It may not necessarily exist. "accounting software is made to do the _book-keeping_" Accounting software is designed to do the *financial* bookkeeping i.e. track where they money goes to and comes from. It is not designed to track the location of goods, via a variety of shipping methods and routes, their departure and arrival and whether payment has or has not been made and whether their release should ro should not be authorized. That requires custom purpose made software with appropriate authorization methodologies incorporated into it. Gnucash has no methodology for external notification that a payment has been received which is about the only part of the operations you have described which falls within the accounting functionality of GnuCash. With a database backend version one could externally query the GnuCash database to obtain such verification but that would require a consistent defined methodology for ensuring tagging the payments recorded into GnuCash with references which can be tracked to the appropriate B/L. Good luck with getting banks to necessarily incorporate the additional information you need in their records. As others have commented I would think what you describe would be best implemented as an external program which can communicate the requisite financial information to GnuCash rather than within GnuCash itself. It is not the value of what you propose that we disgaree with in saying it is out of scope, but the capacity to implement what you propose with the existing available resouces. David Cousens ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-Dev-f1435356.html _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
