Banana Accounting and Forecasting Engine (Alpha Stage)

The Banana Accounting and Forecasting Engine is a powerful, on-premises service providing a comprehensive suite of accounting and forecasting functionalities. Designed for developers, it offers a full set of accounting primitives—such as double-entry bookkeeping, VAT handling, financial reporting, and multi-year forecasting—enabling them to integrate sophisticated financial capabilities directly into their applications without needing to build from scratch. 

With REST API access and support for JSON data input, the Engine simplifies complex financial processes, allowing developers to focus on enhancing their solutions while relying on a trusted, robust accounting backbone. 

The Engine is readily available for developers who want to test and experiment with these advanced financial features directly on their PC, empowering them to evaluate, customize, and seamlessly integrate powerful accounting tools into their software.

We’re also eager to hear from developers about their experience, feedback, and ideas to help shape the evolution of the Engine as we work toward a full version tailored to your needs.

Background and status

For over 30 years, Banana Accounting has been developing and refining the accounting and forecasting engine that powers our solution. With a large user base spanning the globe, we've encountered diverse needs and received valuable input from highly skilled professionals. Their insights have inspired us to expand the functionality and reach of our solution continually. Today, the Banana Accounting and Forecasting engine includes an extensive set of functions designed to meet complex financial needs. 

The financial accounting and forecasting module is a critical component of any financial solution or ERP system. Developing such a powerful and comprehensive suite of functionalities is a significant and costly endeavor for any software company. Early on, we recognized the value of providing developers with access to a library of robust, thoroughly tested accounting functionalities. This ambitious goal guided our approach, and over the years, as we refined and added new features in Banana Accounting, we prioritized separating and abstracting the code responsible for calculations and reporting.

The engine has been continually enhanced to achieve faster calculation speeds, enabling it to handle large datasets efficiently. We subsequently integrated a web server, allowing the engine to deliver most results via REST API. Most recently, we introduced a basic set of commands that let users create accounting files and add transactions, accounts, and other accounting data in JSON format.

We have already packaged the accounting and forecasting engine as a container and deployed it within our server environment. Our back-office solution leverages multiple functionalities of the engine via a REST API, a setup that has proven to be both effective and stable. 

With core functionalities accessible directly through the integrated web server in Banana Accounting, developers can start experimenting and validating results directly on their own PC. This setup, already successfully tested in research projects, provides a practical environment to explore and test the Engine’s capabilities firsthand.

To support developers eager to experiment, we provide clear documentation, examples, and setup instructions, making it easy to test financial reporting and forecasting scenarios through the REST API.

Once developers confirm that the solution meets their needs, the next step is to integrate the Engine into a server environment for broader deployment. We look forward to collaborating with developers to support a seamless integration into their applications.

Possible applications

The integration of the Banana Accounting and Forecasting engine could bring many advantages for existing applications and open new possibilities, for example for:

• Easy develop new application 
  • Create a simple financial solution based on the professional double entry accounting methodology with a full set of financial reporting.
  • Use existing budgeting data for creating a powerful forecast.  
• Extend existing solutions
  Create more value and preserve your existing solution and investments.
  • Use existing data to create more precise cash flow forecast. 
  • Improve your internal budgeting solution.
  • Use your e-commerce data to instantly create Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, and other financial statements. 
  • Transform your e-commerce or legacy solution in a full ERP. 

Accounting Engine Capabilities

The Banana Accounting Engine offers all capabilities of an advanced global accounting solution, the same available to Banana Accounting users.

Through the Rest API the developer should provide all data necessary data and more specifically. 

• File properties:
  • Accounting period, currency, language, decimal precision, etc. 
• Accounts Table:
  • List of Accounts,  customer and supplier accounts, Costs and profit centers, Segments, Sections and all specific information. 
  • Grouping Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss structure.
• Transactions Table:
  • Where transactions are entered, with all the necessary details. 
• Vat Codes Table:
  • Flexible VAT Code definition to support specific national requirements.
• Exchange rate Table.

Once the developer has provided all the data, it can requests a series of reports: You Reporting 

• Data verification report.
• Financial Reporting:
  • Balance sheet reporting.
  • Profit and Loss reporting.
  • Journal.
  • Account card.
  • Reporting period.
  • Personalized reports.
• VAT:
  • Automated VAT calculation. VAT splitting available only on VAT accounts in basic currency.
  • VAT Journal.
  • Country-specific VAT reporting.
• Invoice printing:
  • VAT totals.
  • Sub-totals.
  • Predefined layout.
  • Flexible fully self-programmable layout.
• Export to in different formats:
  • CSV, XML, JSON, SQL.
  • XBRL.
  • PDF.
  • SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Taxation).
  • Many country-specific data formats.

Forecasting Engine Capabilities

Banana Accounting include a unique double entry based budgeting and forecasting system. 
Forecasting data are entered as transactions in the Budget Table.

The software can calculate all the same report available for the accounting:

• Balance sheet a Budget for multiple years.

Budgeting and financial forecasting.

• Based on the double-entry accounting system.
• Create budgets and manage Cash and investment plans.
• Add custom formulas and calculations.
• Single or multi-year projections of:
  • Balance sheet.
  • Profit & Loss.
  • Cash flow projection.

First Step

The first step is to verify whether the data your application provides to the Engine is sufficient to produce the accounting results you need in your application.

• Banana Accounting includes a web server that allows you to experiment by sending data to the Accounting and Forecasting Engine. 
• Once you have sent the data Banana Accounting will create and display a new accounting file, which you can use to:
  • Verify through the user interface that the data your application has sent is correct and contains all necessary information for the desired reports.
  • Retrieve reporting information using a REST API.

Banana Accounting is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, enabling you to test in these different environments.

While Banana Accounting is also available for iOS, Android, and as a WebApp (WebAssembly running in the browser), the Engine is currently unavailable in these distributions due to platform limitations.

How to start experimenting

If you are a developer, here are the very basic steps you need to follow, if you want to experiment. 

• Basic setup:
  • Download and install Banana Accounting on your computer.
    With the Free Plan you can test the functionalities and enter up to 70 transactions.
  • Enable the integrated Web Server
    • Setup Web Server (Windows)
    • Setup Web Server (macOS) 
  • Experiment with the WebServer.
    Banana Accounting include a full webserver thato provide  RestAPI
    • Create a new file  from template.
    • Save AS to a file,
    • Use your browser to connect to the webserver
      • Use the integrated RestApi Navigator. 
      • See the URL that you can use in your application.
• Structure your JSON data as DocumentChange.
  • Depends on what operation you want to perform in Banana, refer to this documentation DocumentChange. 
• Use the web server to send data.
  • Use the API to create a new file by sending your data.
    • Accounting and Forecasting Data is send using a JSON DocumentChange format.
• Retrieve data with the webserver.
  • Use the RestApi Navigator to find the appropriate API you need in your application to get the data you need.

Best initial approach

Initially we advise developers to:

• Open Banana Accounting.
• Create an accounting file manually and add the accounts and setup you will need. 
• Within your application prepare a JSON DocumentChange that add the Transactions.
• Use the API to create a new file by sending your data.
  • You will sent the content of the File you have create manually together with the Transactions data. 
• The file will be shown in a Banana Accounting Windows and you can use all reporting features. 

Examples

• See an Excel Example Application that send data to Banana Accounting.
  You have to configure your computer to allows Excel to open a connection with Banana Web Server. 

Full Integration Within Your Application

The Banana Accounting and Forecasting Engine is a C++ application built on Qt libraries, making it relatively straightforward to compile the Engine for various platforms.

This innovative solution is designed to grow and evolve based on developer needs. 

We are committed to working together with potential users to determine the most effective way to integrate the Engine within their environments. At present, the interface for data submission is basic, but we plan to expand its functionality as needs emerge.

Terms, Availability, and Pricing

The pricing and terms for this solution are still under consideration. We’re interested in hearing your thoughts on how the Engine could add value in this regard.

Contact Information

The solution and its documentation are currently in an Alpha stage. Please feel free to reach out if you need assistance or if any part of the documentation needs clarification.