General presentation of Gestan [Le wiki de Gestan]

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====== General presentation of Gestan ======

Gestan is an Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP, that is to say an application which makes it possible to manage manage all the main processes of a company.

It can work:
  * **single station**: on a single computer
  * **in multistation**: for several computers in a local area network (LAN)
  * **in CS multistation**: for several computers on a local area network (LAN) or even on a wide area network (WAN), the database operating in client/server mode.
  * **clustered**: for a server farm.
  * **in the Cloud**: Gestan is thus accessible from any machine connected to the Internet.

It is completed by:
  * **Gestan Mobile**: Gestan's operational data is available on your smartphone
  * **Gestan extensions**: these add specific business functionalities to Gestan.

{{ youtube>zgF1X4nks2g?widthxheight=560x315 |Presentation of Gestan }}

==== Gestan's DNA ====

Gestan is a solution cultivating:
  * the **ease of handling**: guarantee of efficiency, ease of use, and speed of operational use
  * the **robustness**: it works with a HFSQL database, robust and efficient, with no need for maintenance.
  * the **power without the complexity**: each module can be activated, or not, according to the needs of the company
  * **competitiveness**: it is unquestionably the best cost/power ratio on the market.

Plus, as we use it every day, it's **full of tricks** that you won't discover all in one day!

==== Gestan Versions ====

Gestan is available in two versions:
  * **Gestan Standard**, 100% free
  * **Gestan Entreprise**, requiring an annual license.

Gestan Entreprise, compared to Gestan Standard, provides:
  * a **larger operational scope** (stocks, supplier accounting, diaries and schedules, machines, e-mailing and commercial management, configurable fields, etc.)
  * many **additional features** (duplication of invoices, contacts, etc.), providing increased comfort and efficiency.

==== The main data managed by Gestan ====

=== Companies and Contacts ===

The central concept, in Gestan, is that of **Contact**: these are the natural persons who are your professional relations (customers, prospects, partners, services, service providers, etc.), or personal.

Contacts may or may not be attached to legal persons, **companies**.

=== Projects, tasks, work times ===

Gestan makes it possible to follow work times: who does what, on which **task** of which **project**, for **how long**.

These working times can be invoiced with a single click.

=== Actions and Interventions ===

Gestan allows you to manage the **actions** (letters, emails, telephone, miscellaneous work, information, birthdays), that you carry out internally for your contacts, and the **interventions** that you carry out externally, with your customers .

Actions can be generated automatically, on a recurring basis.

Like work times, interventions can be invoiced in one click. It is possible to attach **ingredients** to them.

=== Products and inventory ===

You can manage a catalog of **products** that you distribute and buy, with their prices, and manage the corresponding **stocks** if necessary.

You can manage several **supplier tariffs** and several **customer tariffs**. **Product equivalences** allow you to replace one product with another.

If you do not use product catalogs, you can enter the lines and prices of your invoices and quotes completely freely.

=== Customer Billing ===

Gestan makes it possible to draw up **quotes**, **customer orders**, **customer invoices**, **credit notes**, and **delivery notes**.

It is possible to generate recurring invoices.

Gestan makes it possible to follow the construction sites and to make progress invoices.

=== Supplier invoicing===

Gestan makes it possible to establish **price requests**, **supplier orders**, **supplier invoices**, **supplier credit notes**, and **receipt slips**.

== The "Machines" ===

Under the generic concept of **machine**, Gestan makes it possible to manage
  * any item you can rent, for example bicycles if you rent them
  * any object that you can maintain, for example the boilers of your customers if you are a heating engineer
  * any object that you use as part of your job, for example your rotary presses if you are a printer.

It is possible to manage maintenance plans for these machines.

=== Accounting Entries ===

Gestan allows you to record **receipts/disbursements** on all your **accounts**, and to reconcile them with your **account statements**.

The entries can be linked to the **charges** of the **chart of accounts**.

All entries can be exported, in the native format of all major accounting software on the market.

Depending on your entries, you have a permanent view of your **cash flow**, your balance, general ledger, and income statement.

For France, Gestan generates the CA3 VAT declaration.

=== Anomalies ===

You can attach an anomaly to any entity managed by Gestan, a contact, a product, a user, an invoice, and follow the treatment of the anomaly step by step.

=== Other data managed by Gestan ===

**Memberships and payments**: Gestan makes it possible to record memberships and payments made by contacts, such as association dues, for example.

**Notes**: Gestan allows you to store various notes on all subjects, hierarchical in tree structure, as in the file explorer

**Favorites**: Gestan allows you to manage your codes and passwords, associated with a URL if it is a code and password corresponding to a website.

**Post'it**: these are small notes that you can "stick" on your screen, or on the screen of another Gestan user. Very handy ;=)

==== Technical characteristics ====

Gestan is developed via the AGL published by [[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_SOFT|PCSoft]], widely used in France and around the world.

Certain parts of the software are open-source, in particular the structure of the database, or programs such as the one for editing invoices.

The use of a standard AGL made it possible to open the software to any outside developer knowing this AGL, able to develop new functions or modify existing ones. However, the provisions of the 2018 finance law have considerably reduced this freedom, and restricted the possibilities of intervention by external developers to a restricted list of technical partners, linked to the publisher of Gestan by a strict confidentiality agreement, this to from version 15.00.00 of Gestan.

Gestan works with all versions of Windows since Windows XP.

It only requires a reduced amount of RAM. Any desktop-type PC (W7 and 4GB of RAM or W10 and 8GB of RAM) will run Gestan perfectly.

==== Database ====

Gestan works with [[https://pcsoft.fr/accueilpub/hfsql.htm|databases in HFSQL format]], database format associated with the development environments offered by PCSoft: WinDev, WebDev and WinDev Mobile.

The HFSQL database engine was launched by PCSoft in 1988, under the name "HyperFile". It was then named "HyperFile SQL", then HFSQL. It is freely deployable, without royalties, in all its versions.

The HFSQL engine operates in two possible modes:

  * **HFSQL Classic**: the program directly manages access to the database. Concurrent access to records is managed automatically. This mode is suitable for single station or local area network (LAN) operation.
  * **HFSQL client/server**: Access to data is performed here via server software, installed on the physical server that supports the database. This server software exists for Windows and Linux. This mode of operation makes it possible to accelerate the performance of access to data in the network, in particular by limiting the volume of data circulating on the network. It also enables secure remote access (WAN) with good performance.

TIP [[https://everybodywiki.com/HFSQL|More informations about HFSQL]]

In 2006, Hyper File was introduced to the public using a base of 10 billion records. In 2021, operations on HFSQL are performed on a database of 25 billion rows.

In theory, Gestan can therefore manage 25 billion records per file. This limit is obviously never reached in normal use. However, Gestan users quite commonly have volumes exceeding 100,000 records per file (100,000 products in the catalog, 10,000 invoices per year produced for 10 years, etc.), without encountering any particular difficulty.


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