Thank you very much for such a great program. This program is one of the most powerful book keeping programs for the small business owner i have ever used. Since microsoft ended ms money i have been looking for a program to replace it, and i think i have found it.
Sorry to say this, but the update was a very bad one.
I had reinstalled my computer and installed the new version.
1. I could not load the database from the old version. Very bad. Had to recreate all that was done this year.
2. The question if you really want to add the post again is not only showing on the first empty post (that bug wasn’t so bad). Now I get the question EVERY time I save new entry. Annoying to say the least.
The rest of the program works just as well as before, so why did you have to make such a release?
I am sorry to hear that you could not load the database from the old installation. You should have contacted me earlier. It really should work problem free. Many people have done it without problem.
The question you are getting when you add a post can be disabled in the setup->miscelaneous section.
This latest release was necessary to fix a few minor bugs but mainly to make it more compatible with jEdit and Linux and OpenJDK
This is one of the best general ledger software that i have tried >Having been an accountant ,many years ago ,i helped develope a general ledger progran (dbase2) A lot of copies were sold to Public Accounting Firms ,This Software is not quiet up to the standard of that program ,but with a little bit of up grading and change in the terminology ,it would then be as good as ,The one i helped develope was menu driven ,which i think is the best way to go ,could also choose the number of trading accounts ,which was also good for farm accounting,But all said and done ,this is the best available And the best part its freeHad no trouble setting it up and running it ,and was surprised that it did just about everything ,i wanted a program to do ,whereas others that i had tried ,were hopeless when it came to the end result
Thanks for a great program. It’s amazing how most other accounting software can’t do simple things well. I must have tried 10 other programs looking for a good general ledger program… none could do what I wanted well, until I found Lazy8Ledger.
One Suggestion: I had a hard time figuring out how to change companies and time periods (shut down and restart the software… then select them at startup). It would be helpful to include this in the help notes for these subjects. It took me a long time to figure this out.
Hello Thomas, Thanks for the suggestion. Documentation needs always improvement. Just a suggestion for your suggestion. There is an option to allow changing the company and timeperiod without restarting the program. It is useful if you change backwards and forwards often. See the miscelaneous section in the setup
Thanks for the clarification… Now the pull-down menus for the company and period work as expected!
Another issue has arisen. I am working in the USA with USA accounting methods, and am having some trouble implementing a standard USA Balance Sheet.
A simple “Balance Sheet” is fundamental over here, showing just an Assets summary, Liabilities summary, and Equity summary. (A separate Income and Expense summary is also standard). Total Liabilities and total Equity are added together to show that the total Assets equal Liabilities + Equity (at least they should be equal, if accounts are balanced properly). To make this work prior to period closing entries, the Equity summary includes a Profits&Loss line for year-to-date net income, which is simply the total of all income minus all expenses for the current period.
It appears that the only way to do this presently is to MANUALLY enter the Income-Expense total into a separate Profit&Loss account, and include this Profit&Loss account in with the Equity accounts, and define a “special” report format to make up a Balance Sheet.
The manual entry is not difficult, but is potentially problematic (not optimal). It would be a great help if this calculation could be done by the software. One way to do this might be to define a new “Account Type” of “Profit&Loss.” An account defined in this way would not accept normal accounting entries, but would simply be the sum (or difference) of all Income and Expense accounts for the current period (Profit&Loss = Revenues – Cost of Sales – Expenses). This type of account would be disregarded for most other types of reports.
Maybe I’m missing something here(?). Is there a way to do a USA-type Balance Sheet already?
On a related note, it would be helpful if a standard North-American Income/Expense report were included with the standard reports (just showing an income summary, an expenses summary, and net profit or loss). This can reasonably be done as a “Special” report, but many over here won’t want to mess with the “Advanced” features to do this.
Again, thanks for a great program, and for any advice you can give me with this Balance Sheet issue.
I am using a higher-resolution HDMI monitor. In the transaction window the line spacing (for detailed transaction data in the spreadsheet-like area) is so small that it is hard to read the text while entering it (the line height is smaller than the text height). Is there any way to adjust that in the present software? If not, please consider making the line spacing larger in future releases. Using larger line-spacing would make it easier to read also. Thanks.
You need to adjust your Account-Types in order to get your equity and balance sheet as you want. Look in the advanced menus. You need a recent version of lazy8ledger as well. Like version 2.24. Let me know if you don’t understand. I changed lazy8ledger a few years ago just to make it work for this equity problem in North America.
You need to adjust your fonts. You need to get to the jEdit Global Options menu and then the “Appearance” section and the “List and text field font”. Let me know if this fixes it for you.
Thanks for your prompt reply. I am using version 2.24.
Regarding the balance sheet issue: I understand that the “equity” type of account may be applicable only to North America. However, I don’t see any way to automatically add all income and expenses into a single equity account, for use in a balance sheet (to show profit or loss year-to-date). Please clarify. Thanks.
Regarding the font-size and line spacing issue: Changing the “List and text field font” did help quite a bit. However, adjusting the font size does not adjust the line spacing, so the larger fonts I prefer don’t fit well. Is there any way to make the line spacing in the transaction entry area larger? If not, this might be something to consider for a future release.
NOte: I first had to change the “Swing look and feel” item to “Metal” in order to adjust the “List and text field font.” I was previously in “Windows classic” mode, and I presume the Windows font settings apply in that mode. I prefer the Windows mode, except that my preferred font sizes don’t fit well with the small line spacing in the transaction list.
Hello Thomas, This is only a general ledger. Similar to what you would write yourself on paper except that you do it in a computer. That means there is NOTHING that is automatic. The only gain you get by doing it in the computer as opposed to paper, is that the reports are very very powerful so you can get in seconds reports that in the old days would take days to produce. To summarize, you need to enter equity manually into an account that has an account type = Equity. Before we made this change for North America, there were no “Account-Types.” The account-types were added to accomadate the need for an “Equity” account type that would have its own summary in the balance/result report.
In order to understand better, log-in to this lazy8Web with the username=english and the password=english. Then go to the Report menu and look at the Balance/Result report. From there you can see how the equity is used as well as if you do the Account Summary report.
I don’t have any other ideas about the fonts. I need to look into this further as you say.
Thanks again for your prompt reply. I think that all reports generating automatically is a huge benefit that IS automatic. That is the root of my problem… that a North American type of Balance Sheet can only be produced with extra manual input. I can live with having to deal with transferring profit and loss manually, but it is obviously not my preference. This is the only major weakness I have found with Lazy8Ledger relative to other software I have recently reviewed (though Lazy8 takes a little more computer savy to install and use).
I think virtually all of the accounting programs written for North America (including ones limited to general ledger functionality) automatically produce a Balance Sheet showing year-to-date profit and loss as a single-line equity item (often called “retained earnings”). Some examples of relatively simple software that includes this feature are: Medlin.com “General Ledger” software ($45), “Ledger” software by Responsive Software (free version), “Express Acounts” software by NCH Software (in Australia, free version), and “BS1 General Ledger” by Davis Business Systems (free version). I would add, however, that each of these programs have weaknesses that Lazy8Ledger does not have.
I understand that the developers of Lazy8 aren’t doing this for the money (the program is free, thank you), and it’s fine if you want to keep it like it is. But, if you want more people in North America to use it, I recommend that you consider this as a possible area of improvement for future versions.
Again, thanks for a great program, and your prompt responses to my inquiries.
Another minor problem: Now that I’m at the end of my first accounting period with Lazy8, I’m trying to add additional accounts. However, they all end up as type “0″ accounts (Current Assets), even after I “Change” them to other types. Looks like a bug to me. What do you think? Is there an easy work-around, or something I am missing?
I just now tested creating a new account and I had no problem setting the account type. Maybe you are not aware of how the account entering works. Try the following:
1. Open the “account” window.
2. Hit the “Clear” button (just to be sure)
3. Enter the account number and name. Click on the Account type you want so that it is highlighted.
4. Hit the “Add” button. Thats it..
By the way, do you have any AccountTypes in the advanced->accountTypes window? If not you may need to download the latest version I just made. Somebody reported a bug where they could not enter Account Types into the account type window. Anyway, download http://www.lazy8.nu/download/Lazy8LedgerPlugin.jar and replace the Lazy8Ledger.jar(note the name is slightly changed) that should be in your “/home/(username)/.jedit/jars” directory with the one you downloaded. In Windows this directory is often “c:\Users\(username)\.jedit\jars”. In macintosh it is usually “User/Library/jEdit/jars”. Restart jEdit.
Thanks for your help with this. I just downloaded the new 2.25 version and tried it. I still have the same problem. Even following your suggested sequence for a new account, it always ends up as a type 0 “current asset” account type. (I think I was able to change an account type once recently, but I can’t duplicate that success).
When I started testing Lazy8Ledger initially I had no problem making new accounts (with varying account types) and changing the account type, but now that I have a number of transactions posted I don’t seem to be able to “change” account types, or add new accounts with the proper account type.
Sounds like it might be a hard bug to track down. What do you suggest??
I also tried to backup the company and restore it to a different company name to see if that might help. However, when I try to restore it I get an error message: “Invalid file name.:Immediate primary Key constraint violation(_ANONYMOUS_CONSTRAINT_7)Columns=(AccountCompld)Table=(APP.Account)”. This error message happens after I click “No” to the question: “Do you wnat to restore this company to an already existing company?” Perhaps these problems are related???
I don’t think it matters, but, for the record, I am running Windows XP-SP3 and “jEdit 4.3.1 server mode, using Java 1.6.0_18)”. I’m not sure why I’m in “server mode” or if that matters.
Also, do you prefer that I email you directly, or keep using the comments page?
Thank you very much for such a great program. This program is one of the most powerful book keeping programs for the small business owner i have ever used. Since microsoft ended ms money i have been looking for a program to replace it, and i think i have found it.
THANK YOU!
Sorry to say this, but the update was a very bad one.
I had reinstalled my computer and installed the new version.
1. I could not load the database from the old version. Very bad. Had to recreate all that was done this year.
2. The question if you really want to add the post again is not only showing on the first empty post (that bug wasn’t so bad). Now I get the question EVERY time I save new entry. Annoying to say the least.
The rest of the program works just as well as before, so why did you have to make such a release?
I am sorry to hear that you could not load the database from the old installation. You should have contacted me earlier. It really should work problem free. Many people have done it without problem.
The question you are getting when you add a post can be disabled in the setup->miscelaneous section.
This latest release was necessary to fix a few minor bugs but mainly to make it more compatible with jEdit and Linux and OpenJDK
Hello
I would like to have the program in dutch but can’t choose that language is there a way to add this language ?
Best regards Jonas
This is one of the best general ledger software that i have tried >Having been an accountant ,many years ago ,i helped develope a general ledger progran (dbase2) A lot of copies were sold to Public Accounting Firms ,This Software is not quiet up to the standard of that program ,but with a little bit of up grading and change in the terminology ,it would then be as good as ,The one i helped develope was menu driven ,which i think is the best way to go ,could also choose the number of trading accounts ,which was also good for farm accounting,But all said and done ,this is the best available And the best part its freeHad no trouble setting it up and running it ,and was surprised that it did just about everything ,i wanted a program to do ,whereas others that i had tried ,were hopeless when it came to the end result
Thanks for a great program. It’s amazing how most other accounting software can’t do simple things well. I must have tried 10 other programs looking for a good general ledger program… none could do what I wanted well, until I found Lazy8Ledger.
One Suggestion: I had a hard time figuring out how to change companies and time periods (shut down and restart the software… then select them at startup). It would be helpful to include this in the help notes for these subjects. It took me a long time to figure this out.
-Thomas
Hello Thomas, Thanks for the suggestion. Documentation needs always improvement. Just a suggestion for your suggestion. There is an option to allow changing the company and timeperiod without restarting the program. It is useful if you change backwards and forwards often. See the miscelaneous section in the setup
Thanks for the clarification… Now the pull-down menus for the company and period work as expected!
Another issue has arisen. I am working in the USA with USA accounting methods, and am having some trouble implementing a standard USA Balance Sheet.
A simple “Balance Sheet” is fundamental over here, showing just an Assets summary, Liabilities summary, and Equity summary. (A separate Income and Expense summary is also standard). Total Liabilities and total Equity are added together to show that the total Assets equal Liabilities + Equity (at least they should be equal, if accounts are balanced properly). To make this work prior to period closing entries, the Equity summary includes a Profits&Loss line for year-to-date net income, which is simply the total of all income minus all expenses for the current period.
It appears that the only way to do this presently is to MANUALLY enter the Income-Expense total into a separate Profit&Loss account, and include this Profit&Loss account in with the Equity accounts, and define a “special” report format to make up a Balance Sheet.
The manual entry is not difficult, but is potentially problematic (not optimal). It would be a great help if this calculation could be done by the software. One way to do this might be to define a new “Account Type” of “Profit&Loss.” An account defined in this way would not accept normal accounting entries, but would simply be the sum (or difference) of all Income and Expense accounts for the current period (Profit&Loss = Revenues – Cost of Sales – Expenses). This type of account would be disregarded for most other types of reports.
Maybe I’m missing something here(?). Is there a way to do a USA-type Balance Sheet already?
On a related note, it would be helpful if a standard North-American Income/Expense report were included with the standard reports (just showing an income summary, an expenses summary, and net profit or loss). This can reasonably be done as a “Special” report, but many over here won’t want to mess with the “Advanced” features to do this.
Again, thanks for a great program, and for any advice you can give me with this Balance Sheet issue.
-Thomas
One more question/suggestion:
I am using a higher-resolution HDMI monitor. In the transaction window the line spacing (for detailed transaction data in the spreadsheet-like area) is so small that it is hard to read the text while entering it (the line height is smaller than the text height). Is there any way to adjust that in the present software? If not, please consider making the line spacing larger in future releases. Using larger line-spacing would make it easier to read also. Thanks.
-Thomas
You need to adjust your Account-Types in order to get your equity and balance sheet as you want. Look in the advanced menus. You need a recent version of lazy8ledger as well. Like version 2.24. Let me know if you don’t understand. I changed lazy8ledger a few years ago just to make it work for this equity problem in North America.
You need to adjust your fonts. You need to get to the jEdit Global Options menu and then the “Appearance” section and the “List and text field font”. Let me know if this fixes it for you.
Thanks for your prompt reply. I am using version 2.24.
Regarding the balance sheet issue: I understand that the “equity” type of account may be applicable only to North America. However, I don’t see any way to automatically add all income and expenses into a single equity account, for use in a balance sheet (to show profit or loss year-to-date). Please clarify. Thanks.
Regarding the font-size and line spacing issue: Changing the “List and text field font” did help quite a bit. However, adjusting the font size does not adjust the line spacing, so the larger fonts I prefer don’t fit well. Is there any way to make the line spacing in the transaction entry area larger? If not, this might be something to consider for a future release.
NOte: I first had to change the “Swing look and feel” item to “Metal” in order to adjust the “List and text field font.” I was previously in “Windows classic” mode, and I presume the Windows font settings apply in that mode. I prefer the Windows mode, except that my preferred font sizes don’t fit well with the small line spacing in the transaction list.
Hello Thomas, This is only a general ledger. Similar to what you would write yourself on paper except that you do it in a computer. That means there is NOTHING that is automatic. The only gain you get by doing it in the computer as opposed to paper, is that the reports are very very powerful so you can get in seconds reports that in the old days would take days to produce. To summarize, you need to enter equity manually into an account that has an account type = Equity. Before we made this change for North America, there were no “Account-Types.” The account-types were added to accomadate the need for an “Equity” account type that would have its own summary in the balance/result report.
In order to understand better, log-in to this lazy8Web with the username=english and the password=english. Then go to the Report menu and look at the Balance/Result report. From there you can see how the equity is used as well as if you do the Account Summary report.
I don’t have any other ideas about the fonts. I need to look into this further as you say.
Thanks again for your prompt reply. I think that all reports generating automatically is a huge benefit that IS automatic. That is the root of my problem… that a North American type of Balance Sheet can only be produced with extra manual input. I can live with having to deal with transferring profit and loss manually, but it is obviously not my preference. This is the only major weakness I have found with Lazy8Ledger relative to other software I have recently reviewed (though Lazy8 takes a little more computer savy to install and use).
I think virtually all of the accounting programs written for North America (including ones limited to general ledger functionality) automatically produce a Balance Sheet showing year-to-date profit and loss as a single-line equity item (often called “retained earnings”). Some examples of relatively simple software that includes this feature are: Medlin.com “General Ledger” software ($45), “Ledger” software by Responsive Software (free version), “Express Acounts” software by NCH Software (in Australia, free version), and “BS1 General Ledger” by Davis Business Systems (free version). I would add, however, that each of these programs have weaknesses that Lazy8Ledger does not have.
I understand that the developers of Lazy8 aren’t doing this for the money (the program is free, thank you), and it’s fine if you want to keep it like it is. But, if you want more people in North America to use it, I recommend that you consider this as a possible area of improvement for future versions.
Again, thanks for a great program, and your prompt responses to my inquiries.
-Thomas
Another minor problem: Now that I’m at the end of my first accounting period with Lazy8, I’m trying to add additional accounts. However, they all end up as type “0″ accounts (Current Assets), even after I “Change” them to other types. Looks like a bug to me. What do you think? Is there an easy work-around, or something I am missing?
Thanks for your patience with me.
-Thomas
I just now tested creating a new account and I had no problem setting the account type. Maybe you are not aware of how the account entering works. Try the following:
1. Open the “account” window.
2. Hit the “Clear” button (just to be sure)
3. Enter the account number and name. Click on the Account type you want so that it is highlighted.
4. Hit the “Add” button. Thats it..
By the way, do you have any AccountTypes in the advanced->accountTypes window? If not you may need to download the latest version I just made. Somebody reported a bug where they could not enter Account Types into the account type window. Anyway, download http://www.lazy8.nu/download/Lazy8LedgerPlugin.jar and replace the Lazy8Ledger.jar(note the name is slightly changed) that should be in your “/home/(username)/.jedit/jars” directory with the one you downloaded. In Windows this directory is often “c:\Users\(username)\.jedit\jars”. In macintosh it is usually “User/Library/jEdit/jars”. Restart jEdit.
Thanks for your help with this. I just downloaded the new 2.25 version and tried it. I still have the same problem. Even following your suggested sequence for a new account, it always ends up as a type 0 “current asset” account type. (I think I was able to change an account type once recently, but I can’t duplicate that success).
When I started testing Lazy8Ledger initially I had no problem making new accounts (with varying account types) and changing the account type, but now that I have a number of transactions posted I don’t seem to be able to “change” account types, or add new accounts with the proper account type.
Sounds like it might be a hard bug to track down. What do you suggest??
I also tried to backup the company and restore it to a different company name to see if that might help. However, when I try to restore it I get an error message: “Invalid file name.:Immediate primary Key constraint violation(_ANONYMOUS_CONSTRAINT_7)Columns=(AccountCompld)Table=(APP.Account)”. This error message happens after I click “No” to the question: “Do you wnat to restore this company to an already existing company?” Perhaps these problems are related???
I don’t think it matters, but, for the record, I am running Windows XP-SP3 and “jEdit 4.3.1 server mode, using Java 1.6.0_18)”. I’m not sure why I’m in “server mode” or if that matters.
Also, do you prefer that I email you directly, or keep using the comments page?
Thanks for your help.
-Thomas
these program are very goot. today i install this in my note book acer with debian 5.0.4 lenny and everything is ok. I use gnome interface. thank you.
from são paulo – Brasil