Google Summer of Code 2014 Ideas

================================

Welcome, potential Google Summer of Code students!  This project is

currently called "The NPO Accounting Project", for lack of a better name.

The project is coordinated by

[Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.](https://sfconservancy.org/) which is a

501(c)(3) charitable not-for-profit organization in the USA.  We run all our

operations solely and completely on Free Software.

One area that we've had great difficulty is regarding non-profit accounting

software.  We've launch this project to improve the state of accounting Open

Source and Free Software for non-profits.  Since this NPO Accounting project

is just getting started, there are only the four potential projects below

## Possible GSoC 2014 Projects

1. Add all necessary the tag types found

   [the tutorial on the Ledger-CLI setup for fiscal sponsor 501(c)3 organizations](https://gitorious.org/ledger/npo-ledger-cli/)

   into the

   [REST API for basic double-entry accounting](http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/accounting-api/),

   and then write some reports using that new API.

   This will require the student to get familiar (or already be familiar)

   with how Ledger-CLI works, how REST APIs work, and learn some basics of

   double entry accounting.

    A successful student should be able to complete that work about

    three-quarters the way through the summer, and then be able to focus on

    actually writing a few specialized NPO-style report using the API.  A

    great acid test will be to use the API to implement the

    [IRS required charity public support test](http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Exempt-Organizations-Annual-Reporting-Requirements-Form-990,-Schedules-A-and-B:-Public-Charity-Support-Test).

2. Convert  [Ledger-CLI](http://www.ledger-cli.org/) to use fixed-point

   arithmetic.

   Currently Ledger-CLI uses floating point arithmetic, which is definitely a

   mistake for an accounting system.  This causes

   [off-by-one bugs](http://bugs.ledger-cli.org/show_bug.cgi?id=992) on some

   types of transactions.  This should be fixed.

   A successful student on this task will:

      * Write various test cases for Ledger-CLI that will clearly show the

        floating point issue.

      * Rework the codebase to use fixed-point arithmetic so those bugs are

        closed.

      * Shepherd the patch upstream.

      * Close any bug tickets in the bug tracker that relate to this issue.

      * Time permitting: verify that other Ledger implementations don't

        face the same problem.

   Note that because this would be a major "bombing run" sort of change,

   there may be some resistance to upstreaming this patch, so this task may

   be harder than it looks on the surface from a community advocacy angle.  

3. Build a better test suite for [Ledger-CLI](http://www.ledger-cli.org/).

   Since this project relies so heavily on Ledger-CLI, we'd really like there

   to be a full test coverage for Ledger-CLI.  To do that, a student will

   need to be already somewhat familiar C++ and willing to learn about how to

   set up test suites for C++ programs, and likes writing tests.  The student

   could easily spend the whole summer just writing tests and not finish.