Tinybooker is an accounting program offering the dual accounting core functionality for moderate size accountings:

• Assisted establishing new accountings
• Localized scheme templates
• Easy entering and saving new entries
• Standard reports in plain text or HTML: Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Journal, Nominal Ledger, Final Statement and Scheme
• Assisted opening the next financial year
• Accounting example as a demo
• Open for auditing, all files human readable plain text
• All written in pure Python

This is a guide for Tinybooker accounting program. This is NOT a general introduction to dual accounting. If you know nothing of accounting, you should first read some book of it. You may start here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Accountancy/Introduction_to_Accountancy. Study also the local legislation.

Tinybooker is available for downloading at its home page; http://tinybooker.org/ or at Tinybooker development projects page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tinybooker/files. To install Tinybooker:

• Your machine must run Linux operating system.
• You must have Python programing language version >= 2.5 but < 3.0 installed.
• Your Linux must have Graphic Toolkit library GTK2 installed (standard in most distributions).

Tinybooker is build under Fedora and Gnome desktop, but is tested also in Ubuntu and KDE desktop. If you try Tinybooker in some other Linux distribution I would be glad to hear how it works.

To install Python visit Python's home site: http://python.org/download.

When you have downloaded Tinybooker, the installation goes as follows:

$ tar -xzf tinybooker-0.2.x.tar.gz # uncompress the downloaded Tinybooker package $ cd tinybooker-0.2.x # go to the uncompressed directory $ ls # it should look like that tinybooker PKG-INFO README setup.py # the next step must be done as root $ sudo python setup.py install # run the setup script

Tinybooker installation is now done. By default Tinybooker is installed to folder .../site-packages/tinybooker under your Python library and a short Tinybooker startup script 'tinybooker' is put to folder /usr/bin. Write

$ tinybooker

You can also run Tinybooker without running the setup script.

$ cd tinybooker # In the folder tinybooker-0.2.x change to folder tinybooker $ ls # it looks like that booker.py csvcnt gui.py pic settings.py tinybooker components.py datatypes.py __init__.py PKG-INFO tests const.py functions.py locales reports.py testtools $ python booker.py & # you can start Tinybooker also with this

If you lack the root privileges you can use Tinybooker from your home directory in the later manner.

Image 2: New User

When you first time open the Tinybooker, you are asked to select the user interface language and the program you want to use to view plain text format reports. Languages in this early release are only English and Finnish. We are waiting for more localizations. When establishing accountings you may select different language for their reports. Select text viewer from drop down menu or type path to your favorite text editor. To view plain text reports you shall use fixed width font. Ensure that such one is available in your editor. HTML format reports are opened in your default WEB browser.

Click Apply and the Tinybooker main window will open. You may update your user interface settings from main menu Accounts/Preferences.

Next you are advised to open Tinybooker Demo from main menu Help/Accounting example. It is the quick way to see what Tinybooker is and what it can do.

• Prepare some reports from main menu Reports/Prepare report to see what they are.
• Open entry input from Entries/Save new entries and add some virtual vouchers. Make a proper report to see changes your new entries caused.
• Open Accounts/Preferences to see the collection of available configuration.
• Select Accounts/New/Establish New Accounts. Travel through the different pages to see for what you should be prepared when you start founding your real accountings. On page “Select scheme templates” view available scheme templates in your locale. Think which are the best starting point for your purposes and what changes you shall do. Copy the templates via the clipboard to your text editor, so you can use them to draft your real scheme.
• On the last page “Set the financial year properties” where the Next-button is replaced by the Finished-button click Cancel and you are prompted to accept that your trial accountings will be destroyed.

Before you rush to create your real accounting, please read the next chapter.