While not a developer by trade, Metcalfe introduced himself to Perl while looking for a way to do comprehensive loan calculations, and PostgreSQL was chosen for its reliability.

"Most apps can tolerate some data loss; for example you probably don't need last month's entries in your calendar; however, if you lose last month's entries in your accounting system you have to go back and enter them all in again," he said.

In comparing the functionality of SYMBOL with the popular Windows-only applications like MYOB and Quicken, Metcalfe says all the usual reports such as trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet, aged debtors, and aged creditors are there, along with various payroll reports.

Metcalfe is confident SYMBOL is ready for production use and claims at least five small businesses are already using it to do their books. And with PostgreSQL behind it, Metcalfe said there is no reason why SYMBOL won't scale to organizations with thousands of employees.

In addition to the standard features, SYMBOL allows each user to define the ageing of debtors and creditors independently and its multidimensional querying has been designed from the ground up.