Top 10 Benefits of Customizing Odoo ERP to Meet Your Business Needs

Odoo is the most well-known open-source ERP software, used by over 3 million users. It started back in 2005 as ‘TinyERP,’ later changing its name to ‘OpenERP’ and finally to ‘Odoo.’ Top Odoo benefits include lot of modules and functionalities.

As an open source software, Odoo has had a lot of benefits that other software lacked, including access to a dedicated community as well as powerful customizability for individual business needs. While there are many more benefits that could be mentioned, we’ve narrowed it down for you so you can get a good idea of what Odoo is all about. 

Here are the top 10 Odoo benefits:

1. One solution for your entire business: Odoo is a business software suite that can cover all your needs. It includes modules such as Inventory, Sales, CRM, Accounting, Manufacturing, Human resources, and more. Odoo’s app store has over 10,000 apps, so even specialized industry needs are addressed.
2. Low cost of implementation: Odoo has a relatively low cost of implementation, as well as low recurring costs. One of the reasons has to do with its licensing. Odoo’s Community version has no licensing fees, though it lacks some features along with customer support. Its Enterprise version, which comes with the full set of features, does have licensing fees. However, these are still minuscule compared to those of most other ERP software.
3. Customizable: One of the top Odoo benefits is its customizability: Odoo partners can modify Odoo to fit your business’s individual needs. So even if you have a specific request that goes beyond Odoo’s app store or isn’t sufficiently addressed there, a partner can develop the feature for you. This is extremely valuable because the adoption of a company-wide ERP often comes with huge behavioral changes from your employees and staff. The more you can make the ERP software fit your needs the less you have to change your business practices, and the more likely your implementation project is to be successful.
4. Easy integration: In addition to being customizable, Odoo is API-friendly and easy to integrate with. So if you’re using QuickBooks or another software you find beneficial, you can integrate it with your new ERP system. Just as in the previous benefit (customizability), this benefit reduces the amount of behavioral change your company needs to make as you adopt your new ERP. On top of that, if you feel that particular software is the best you’ve found for that function, and you want to keep it, you’re able to do so.
5. Easy to implement: Because Odoo has a modular structure (sales, accounting, inventory, etc. split into parts or modules), it can be implemented in a phased approach, e.g. one module at a time. This allows it to proceed at a manageable pace, which is especially useful if you have a large company. It also allows you to test 1) the ability of the implementation partner you’re working with, and 2) the functionality of the software so you can decide whether these two aspects are satisfactory.
6. Scalable: One important characteristic of ERP software is that its scalable and will last your business a long time. You shouldn’t just see the present in your software, but your future as well, and so the software must be able to grow with you. Odoo is fantastic in this regard. If you’re scaling up in terms of employees, you can simply add more users. If you’re scaling in terms of adding more functions to your business (e.g. adding eCommerce, manufacturing, etc.), you can add new modules. If you’re scaling by taking your business global, you can also stick with Odoo (though such a plan is eased by choosing a cloud hosting option — more on this below).
7. Multiple options to choose from: Unlike many software products, which only allow on-premise hosting or only cloud-hosting, Odoo gives both options for businesses to choose from. This allows you to choose what you think is best for your company. Other options include Odoo’s Community and Enterprise versions, which we mentioned earlier. Though the Community version lacks features and customer support, it can still be useful for smaller companies, while its Enterprise version has all the features and is still affordable.
8. Powerful community: One of the largest benefits of working on an open source ERP system is that there is a community in addition to the company working to make the product better. Developers will constantly be analyzing the software for bugs, and they’ll also constantly be adding new features and apps that may be of benefit to you. Odoo incorporates many of these features when it releases its new Enterprise version every year.
9. Security: Another benefit of open-source is that it leads to heightened security. Developers are able to find holes in the source code and fix them before they’re taken advantage of.
10. Intuitive user interface: The last, but still important, of our Odoo benefits, is that it’s extremely user-friendly. The main page after logging in shows the different modules each user has access to. After selecting one of these modules, users can further navigate by using the navigation bar at the top. The software’s UI has improved with each consecutive version, in both appearance and functionality.

Odoo’s grown a lot since its TinyERP and OpenERP days, largely due to the impact of its team, its fantastic community of developers, and its partners as well. From high customizability to an affordable cost of implementation, Odoo is one of the best options out there for your business needs.