As the name suggests, personal accounting software is geared towards the individual user to manage personal finances. Quite often, they also do have capabilities suitable for small business owners, in particular very small operations. The software in this category are typically self-contained packages that run as desktop applications, without need for a server.

Here are some of the open-source personal accounting packages available today:

GnuCash is a double-entry book-keeping personal finance system. It was initially designed to be similar to Intuit’s Quicken application, but it has developed features for small business accounting. It is part of the GNOME desktop environment, meaning it runs on Unix-like systems. A port has been written for Windows.

Eqonomize! is a personal finance manager for small households. It features double entry accounting and support for scheduled recurring transactions, security investments, and budgeting.

Grisbi is a personal finance system. It can manage multiple accounts, currencies and users. It also manages third party, expenditure and receipt categories, as well as budgetary lines, and financial years.

Homebank is a double-entry personal accounting system. Its orientation is towards personal finance, but it includes several analysis features. Homebank runs on Linux as a desktop application using the GTK windowing system.

KMyMoney is a personal finance manager for KDE. It operates similar to GnuCash. It supports different account types, categorisation of expenses and incomes and reconciliation of bank accounts.

osFinancials is a personal accounting package that runs on Windows and Linux. It is a port of TurboCash. It was written in Delphi and uses the Firebird database for its backend.

TurboCash is an open source personal accounting package that thus far runs only on Windows. It does have a substantial user base and it integrates with open source e-commerce packages osCommerce and Zen Cart.