Odoo for Industrial Supply
Your business has outgrown the spreadsheets holding it together.
When you started, QuickBooks, spreadsheets and a few separate systems may have been enough.
Then you added more products. More vendors. More customers. Maybe another warehouse.
Now it takes too much work to answer questions that should be simple.
What do we have in stock? What’s already committed? What needs to be ordered? What price does this customer get? Can we get it there by Tuesday?
Riverline Advisors helps industrial supply companies bring inventory, purchasing, sales and accounting together in Odoo, with experienced implementation experts who understand the business behind the software.
BASED ON OUR 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WITH CLIENTS IN THE INDUSTRY
THESE ARE THE 4 MOST COMMON PROBLEMS.
Built for Industrial Supply
We know where things get complicated.
Industrial supply businesses have a lot happening between the purchase order and the customer order.
You may have thousands of SKUs, multiple suppliers for the same item, different lead times, customer-specific pricing, products sold in different units of measure, and inventory moving in and out all day.
When the systems running those pieces aren’t connected, your people become the connection.
Here are four problems we see when growing industrial supply companies have outgrown the way they’re working now.
#1 You can’t completely trust what the system says you have.
The system says you have 27 of an item. The warehouse says otherwise. Who’s right?
Now someone has to check the shelf before sales can promise it to a customer.
See what you have, where it is and what’s already spoken for.
Odoo brings inventory, sales and purchasing into the same system, so inventory changes as the work happens.
You can manage multiple warehouses and locations, track incoming and outgoing products, see forecasted availability, and use barcode scanning to keep inventory movements current.
#2 Purchasing depends too much on someone remembering what needs to happen.
Your buyer knows which products move quickly, which vendors take longer, and which items you can’t afford to run out of.
That insider knowledge is valuable. But it shouldn’t also be your purchasing system.
Give your team better information about what to buy and when.
Odoo can use inventory levels, forecasted demand and replenishment rules to help identify what needs to be ordered.
Vendor information and pricing can live with the product, giving your team one place to work from instead of checking spreadsheets, emails and old purchase orders.
Your people still make the decisions. They just have better information when they make them.
#3 Pricing gets complicated fast.
One customer gets contract pricing. Another gets a volume discount. A vendor changed its cost last month. Sales has one spreadsheet. Purchasing has another.
The more products and customers you add, the harder that becomes to manage.
Keep the right pricing connected to the right customer, product and order.
Odoo lets you manage customer-specific price lists and rules in the same system your team uses to quote and sell.
Vendor pricing can be maintained with your purchasing information, so changes don’t have to live in somebody’s inbox or spreadsheet.
#4 Your business is running on more systems than it should.
QuickBooks handles accounting. Orders arrive by phone and email. A spreadsheet handles inventory… another spreadsheet handles purchasing.
And someone on your team knows how to make all of it work together.
Until they’re out for the day. Then what?
Bring the business into one system.
Odoo connects sales, purchasing, inventory and accounting so the same transaction can move through the business without being re-entered in multiple places.
An order can reserve inventory. Inventory can drive replenishment. Receiving can update what’s available. Sales and purchasing can flow through to accounting.
You spend less time moving information between systems and more time using it.
Why Riverline Advisors?
We've been working with businesses like yours for decades.
Odoo is the platform. But knowing how to make it work for your business is the part we bring.
Before Riverline Advisors, our founders spent decades building, implementing and supporting ERP systems for industrial supply and other inventory-centric businesses.
So when you tell us you buy the same item from three vendors, sell it in different units of measure, have customer-specific pricing, or need to know what can ship before you promise it, we understand why that matters.
Because the people helping you make those decisions understand both the business and the technical side of ERP, you don't have to explain the same problem over and over as it moves from salesperson to consultant to developer.
That's the Riverline difference.
Decades of ERP experience
We've spent years helping inventory-centric businesses use technology to run their operations.
One expert through the process
The people who learn your business stay involved as your Odoo solution takes shape.
Business first, software second
We start with how your operation works, then decide how Odoo should support it.
Here after go-live
Implementation is just the beginning. We stay involved as your team learns the system and your business changes.
What Can Odoo Bring Together?
More of your business. Fewer workarounds.
Inventory
Know what you have, where it is, what’s coming in and what’s already committed.Purchasing
Manage vendors, costs, purchase orders and replenishment alongside inventory demand.
Sales
Create quotes and orders using the customer, product, pricing and availability information already in the system.
Accounting
Keep the financial side of the business connected to the transactions creating it.
Warehouse Operations
Manage locations, receipts, picking, transfers, deliveries and barcode workflows.
Customer Management
Keep customer information, activity, quotes and orders together instead of spread across inboxes and systems.
Not Sure if You're Ready for ERP?
Start with the problems you're trying to solve.
You don't need to know which Odoo applications you need before you call us.
Tell us how you're handling inventory today. Show us where the spreadsheets come in. Tell us what your team spends too much time doing and what you wish you could see more easily.
We'll help you figure out whether Odoo makes sense, what you would need, and what an implementation would involve.
If it isn't a good fit, we'll tell you.