Comment by trollbridge

An entirely open-source, peer-based accounting package intended for accountants and end users who like the way that certain popular accounting software used to be, with control placed in the user's hands whether they want to run it locally like a desktop app, cloud-based, or some combination thereof. (You can insert a few buzzwords like "blockchain" if that appeals to you.)

After spending a few years developing it for internal purposes, a customer decided to contribute a significant amount to its ongoing, open-source development, plus additional closed-source commercial add-on modules for their own use: making the accounting software useful for very specific industries.

Currently it's piloted running payroll & profit/loss/balance sheet for a handful of small businesses, with the rest of the usual modules (accounts payable, invoicing, quoting, etc.) slated for release this year.

Technology stack is currently Python plus Preact; "severless" architecture where each node maintains a replica of the data involved and can replicate it to other nodes. User interfaces is either CLI or web-based, with an eye towards eventually replicating the desktop user experience of popular accounting packages of times past. We are taking a hard look at shifting from Python to Rust simply as we rely heavily on third-party packages, and Rust is where a lot of the active development in that space is going.

The most fun I had was finding a module written in Perl and Postscript, porting the Perl part to Python, and realising the existing Postscript was excellent and needed no improvement. (Our team now has more Postscript competency than we ever planned to have.)

If you're interested, see my profile for an email and put "HN" in the subject.