The exceedingly grumpy editor's accounting system update [LWN.net]

The exceedingly grumpy editor's accounting system update

Posted Jan 15, 2009 18:48 UTC (Thu) by kingdon (subscriber, #4526)
In reply to: The exceedingly grumpy editor's accounting system update by iabervon
Parent article: The exceedingly grumpy editor's accounting system update

My last first-hand experience as a payer was in 1999 or so, but from a quick web search the following doesn't appear to have changed. (1) the payer does file a copy of every 1099 with the IRS (the US tax agency), and (2) they need to be on special machine-readable paper, the background of which is printed in red ink. If you just have a few, go to an office supply store, buy said red forms, and fill them out with a pen. If you have more, well, this is why all this discussion of software and so on.

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1099

Posted Jan 23, 2009 23:29 UTC (Fri) by dfsmith (guest, #20302) [Link]

The IRS will mail 1099 forms to you for free if you order them on their web site. Surprisingly, they're quite efficient.

You will need an impact printer or well-limbered hand to fill them out though! (We send out fewer than 20 a year.)

I also reviewed the open-source and proprietary accounting programs. I settled on Quickbooks 95 (yes, 1995!) because...

It's quick (vendor lookup, check writing).
It has a very good report browser (if limited report generator).
The '95 version will not connect to the internet or try to update itself. (The forms for non-profits don't change much year-to-year.)
It will run in read-only mode under Wine (on my laptop, for when presenting the books).
Peachtree didn't work on my XP machine. (It's an accounting program: it shouldn't need complex installation tricks. That means something bad is going on in the background.)
It takes the right attitude. (I don't like accounting. The OSS versions seem to have been written by people who do enjoy it and expect us to enjoy it too.)
It hasn't crashed or corrupted my data yet (two years).