Meet Odoo - The Open Source ERP Revolutionizing Business Operations
Odoo is an open-source ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software that provides many applications to support various business processes. Odoo is available in 3 installation types: Odoo Online, Odoo.sh, and on-premise installation where each have their own ups and downs. As an open-source ERP, Odoo is highly modular and customizable, meaning that you can create any feature that Odoo doesn’t have or support yourself. Odoo also boasts its many applications which, compared to other enterprise resource planning softwares, can support many industries’ unique business flow through Odoo’s highly configurable applications. Within its many applications, Odoo provides many business process automations which helps businesses increase their efficiency.
Customizing Odoo for Your Unique Needs: How to Tailor the System to Fit Your Business Requirements
As mentioned previously, Odoo is highly customizable which means that users can configure Odoo applications to fit their unique business process. Users can also create their own applications to be used on Odoo which requires knowledge of programming (at least Python and XML) and Odoo framework. If Odoo configurations are not enough for your business, creating your own Odoo applications can open the door to any business process that you can think of.
Unfortunately, installing your own Odoo applications require your Odoo to be installed on Odoo.sh or on-premise because only both options would allow user to add custom applications. You can use Odoo Online to access the standard Odoo applications like e-commerce, billing, accounting, manufacturing, warehouse, project management, inventory management and many others. Understanding these 3 types of installations will help you choose the right one for your business.
Taking The First Step: How to Start Your Journey with Odoo
The fastest way to start using Odoo applications (or even to try it) is to use Odoo Online. By going to Odoo website, you can quickly choose any applications that you needed by clicking on the ‘Start now’ button. This will take you to the application selection page which you can freely select. Once you select any application, there should be a panel (right-hand side) that would indicate whether you will have a trial version or a free version. The rule of thumb is to select only 1 application so you can use it for free. You can also get some paired applications for free, for example Sales and Invoicing or Website and E-Commerce. Once you finish selecting applications, you would need to enter your information (no credit card required).
Once your Odoo is setup and running, you can start trying out workflow and features that Odoo provides. In case you’re not entirely sure how to use or try the applications, there should be an Odoo representative from your country (or region) that will contact you. Odoo sales representative offers a free demo of the applications that you are trying out so you don’t have to figure out things yourself.
The Benefits of Choosing Odoo for Your Enterprise Resource Planning Needs Over Traditional Solutions
There are many pros (and frankly only a few cons) of choosing Odoo compared to traditional solutions.
Time-wise, traditional solutions would require significantly more time to finish production of your own applications (even compared to Odoo custom applications). Usually companies that provide traditional ERP would study your business process, create a prototype, approval for the prototype and finally creates the final product. This would take 1 to 6 months (some even years) depending on how expert they are and how complicated your business processes are. With Odoo you can start right away (less than 5 minutes) to setup Odoo online and if you need a customized Odoo application, this would take only days to get the final applications.
Cost-wise, Odoo Online offers free applications (if you use only an app or a pair of apps) which you can start using in no time. If you need more than 1 application then Odoo will unlock all applications for a small price of $8.95 monthly per user for Odoo Online and $13.6 monthly for other type of installations. Compared to Odoo, traditional ERP might even cost more than a year subscription of Odoo right of the bat (not to mention you can’t try the final applications yet).
Scalability-wise, Odoo ERP is highly modular and scalable for future improvements. Addition of new applications or modification of existing applications can be used (or not) in a blink of an eye with a simple ‘Install’ button where traditional solutions may hardly support further application improvements due to bad coding format, database limitation or other reasons.
Usability-wise, both Odoo (specifically Odoo custom applications) and traditional solutions can’t escape from errors that caused by either users or developers but Odoo has a ready-to-use way to prevent these errors and notify users if it does occur. Traditional solutions usually troubleshoot errors using console or other channel that only developers has access to. This makes it harder for users to understand the errors and to learn on how to fix and prevent it.
Customizability-wise, Odoo provides more configurable applications than traditional solutions. This is because traditional solutions are usually made based on user requirements and successful test rather than providing users with configurations outside those requirements (they make what you want rather than what you need).
Start Your Odoo Journey Now!
In overall Odoo is a modular, scalable and highly customizable open-source ERP which can be used freely or with subscription. Odoo customization for new applications or on existing applications is relatively easy due to the fact that Odoo already provided the framework for full-stack application developments. Compared to the traditional ERP solutions, Odoo is more time-saving, cost-saving, scalable, usable and lastly more customizable.