Ecommerce is a wonderful way to expand your business operations. With over 24% of all retail purchasing anticipated to happen online by 2026, it only makes sense to open a new branch of your existing business or start a new enterprise in ecommerce.
The challenge is finding a way to optimise your digital storefront from end-to-end. Your goal should be to automate as many back-office tasks as possible so you can focus on what matters most to growth – building customer relationships and improving product marketing.
A key tool to help that automation is Odoo. With well over 5 million customers and $90 million in growth equity, Odoo is transforming ecommerce through business-specific modules. These range from integrated accounting software to real-time analytics.
Our team at OPMC provides a fantastic and easy-to-use Odoo for WooCommerce plugin that enables any online business to quickly benefit from the many features of this powerful accounting software. Let’s review some of the latest features in Odoo 17 and why you need to migrate your ecommerce brand to this option.
What Makes Odoo 17 Accounting Great?
An ecommerce brand is all about improving the customer experience. That is great for sales, but you also need a way to boost your mundane, repetitive daily tasks for complete optimisation. That is precisely where Odoo 17 accounting helps.
The real-time features allow you to make better-informed decisions about your online store’s financial health. Here are some of the many benefits you’ll get when migrating over to Odoo.
#1 – Localisation Packages
Taxes, shipping, and VAT are a pain if you don’t have firsthand experience in the country or region you are targeting your ecommerce sales. An easy around this complication is using the fiscal localisation packages created by Odoo when you sign up.
Inside these ready-made solutions, you’ll gain access to a long list of countries with 400+ features. This includes country/region-specific modules that already have the taxes, fiscal positions, and legal statements set up for your location.
#2 – E-Invoicing
Not every ecommerce brand is located in the U.S. In fact, Europe and the surrounding nations are seeing a massive uptick in online business, and that calls for a need to use PEPPOL invoicing (Pan-European Public Procurement Online).
Odoo makes it easy to work within the regulatory requirements of electronic invoicing if you have a service-facing ecommerce business or work with sub-contractors and drop shippers pushing your products.
#3 – Bank Reconciliation
A significant reason to download and install our Odoo for WooCommerce plugin is the automatic tracking of most financial transactions. Instead of entering that data on your own, you have a digital “team” inputting everything as it happens.
With Odoo 17, you can then reconcile these accounts through a 28,000+ integration from banks all over the world. Up to 95% of all transactions are then matched with the financial records of your accounts – making life a lot easier come end-of-year accounting.
#4 – AI Integration
Do you have a lot of expenses or inventory management invoicing happening in your ecommerce business? Odoo 17 now uses a zero data entry policy by integrating AI (artificial intelligence) into how you capture invoices.
All you do is scan or take a picture of the expense/invoice, and the AI uses its 98% recognition rate to validate the information automatically.
#5 – Scam Protection
Odoo 17 comes pre-built with scam protection for vendor bank account numbers. If you’ve spent any time in ecommerce, you know fraud and chargebacks can be a serious issue. What you may not consider is how you have to protect money going out as much as coming in.
This new scam protection feature automatically warns when the vendor to whom you are sending funds cannot be verified.
Why Migrate Your Ecommerce Store to Odoo 17
A traditional brick-and-mortar retail store is going to have paper money and physical receipts to rely upon for record keeping. That makes it easy to reconcile accounts and “check the books” for any errors.
In the ecommerce space, you must have a solid accounting system operating to track digital sales, deal with returns/refunds, and collect payments from an ever-growing list of client sources. Odoo makes all that possible and more.
The good news is you don’t need to change your ecommerce platform. With WooCommerce operating as a significant player in the ecommerce and web design world, you can maintain the integrity of your popular shop by simply integrating our plugin. This gives the benefits of:
- Better User Experience: Odoo 17 has a streamlined UI (user interface) designed to be way more intuitive to your needs. There are recognisable icons and simplified menu options so you can get the most out of your personalised dashboard instead of getting lost in the mix come tax season.
- Scalability: This is a fully optimised accounting system with lightning-fast processing and better database performance than competitors we have checked out at OPMC. That means you can handle massive volumes of data whenever you go viral with a product on social media or deal with holiday shopping demand.
- Advanced Features: Odoo 17 has everything you could want in accounting features. Besides scalability and the list we’ve already gone over, there is inventory management, product specification, category control, and full integration with your live offerings.
- Analytics: It is next to impossible to compete in today’s ecommerce landscape without some form of analytics. Using Odoo 17 opens the door to customisable reports that give you way more information on how to make better decisions to drive future growth (and profitability!).
- Closing Odoo 13: Of course, there is also a practical reason to migrate your online business to Odoo 17. If you are running Odoo 13 or older, you will lose support – meaning you need to upgrade now.
Final Thoughts
Migrating your online business to Odoo 17 is a powerful way to get ahead of the competitive game. You’ll streamline your backend operations and integrate an easy-to-use accounting system that can save you a ton of money and headaches when managing your ecommerce store.
Check out our Odoo for WooCommerce plugin as part of your migration strategy. This is an easy-to-install solution you can plug into (get it?) WordPress and your supporting WooCommerce system without any need for technical know-how.
Then, you’ll automate and synchronise all your online transactions. Once that is done, you’ll experience a fully supported way to leverage one of the best accounting systems in the world – Odoo 17.
FAQ
Why is accounting important for an ecommerce business?
It all comes down to management. You will be responsible for tracking cash flow and taxes when reporting to your local government, and accounting makes this whole process easier with automation and Odoo.
Why should I use Odoo?
Two reasons – automation and synchronisation. Instead of having to input all your data on your own or designate a team member who could be focused on customer service, you get a fully automated system that can easily sync with your store through our plugin.
Do big companies use Odoo?
There are over 5 million customers of Odoo, including major brands like Danone – a multinational food products Corp leveraging Odoo 17 for everything from inventory management to quality control processes.
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