eekboek.nl

What It Is

EekBoek is electronic accounting software from Squirrel Consultancy, aimed at small and medium-sized businesses. It is not a typical cloud SaaS product, but a free, open-source, locally run accounting application that supports GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows, and other systems, and is written in Perl. Its positioning is clear: to help business owners who are willing to handle their own bookkeeping, but who are not experienced accountants, manage their accounts.

Core Features and Collaboration

Its accounting model follows bookkeeping practices commonly used in Europe, built around the general ledger, purchase journal, sales journal, bank/cash journal, and support for manual journal entries, chart of accounts, receivables and payables, VAT handling, opening balances, year-end closing, and accounting files spanning multiple fiscal years. Reports cover the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, trial/balance sheet, receivables and payables details, VAT returns, general ledger, and journals, and can be exported as text, HTML, or OpenOffice.org formats. Its interaction model is somewhat distinctive: it offers both a scriptable CLI and a graphical interface. Depending on the relational database selected, multiple users can access the same set of accounts at the same time, but the main materials do not describe fine-grained permissions or approval capabilities.

Pricing, Deployment, and Developer Support

EekBoek is explicitly free, and development and support are also described as free, though the project accepts donations. There is no visible information about commercial plans, SLAs, or paid support. Deployment is mainly local/self-hosted, with data stored in a supported relational database. It provides a programmatic interface for integration with other software, while its open-source nature and CLI make automation or secondary development relatively accessible for technical users.

Pros, Cons, and Who It Is For

Its strengths are that it is free and open source, cross-platform, covers the basic accounting cycle, offers practical report export capabilities, and is friendly to Linux and command-line users. Its downsides are that it requires basic accounting knowledge, and the CLI workflow may be a barrier for ordinary business owners; information is also limited regarding modern SaaS expectations such as security and compliance, permissions, cloud access, and bank or payment integrations. It is best suited to small businesses in a European/Dutch context, free-software users, and technically minded finance staff. If you need Chinese tax and accounting support, local invoicing, direct bank connections, and online collaboration, users in China should evaluate local alternatives such as 用友, 金蝶, and 畅捷通. There is no basis in the source text for assessing access from China, so it is marked as unknown.