Odoo for Wholesale & Industrial Distributors

See it running

Watch stock flow through Odoo, from reorder point to the books tying.

These are real screens from a working build for an industrial distributor: 16 SKUs across two branches, trade accounts on volume pricing. Follow the stock and watch the system do the work, no spreadsheets in sight.

The reorder point drafts the PO for you.

Every stocked SKU carries a min and a max. When forecasted stock drops below the min, Odoo drafts the purchase order to top it back to the max, in the vendor's pack size, for you to approve. Reordering stops being a gut-feel spreadsheet.

On screen: a reorder rule on all 16 SKUs, trigger set to Auto. The Hex Bolt forecast already shows 3,000, the draft PO in flight the moment stock ran low.

Odoo reordering rules across 16 industrial SKUs, each with On Hand, Forecast, Auto trigger, Min, Max and To Order — A reorder point on every SKU, drafting the PO on its own

Real-time stock across every branch, on one screen.

Your main DC, your branch, and every bin in between in one view: bulk rack, fast-pick shelves, the tool crib, the Calgary branch, each with live on-hand. No pinch-zoom spreadsheet, no calling the branch to ask what they have.

On screen: a two-warehouse network with storage zones and putaway rules; stock is real-time across every location and its own bin.

Odoo inventory grouped by location: Bulk Rack, Fast-Pick Shelves, Tool Crib, and the Calgary branch, each with on-hand quantity — Every zone and both branches, live, on one screen

Trade pricing that applies itself, per customer.

Each account is assigned its tier. A contractor gets the volume break at 50 boxes, a distributor a deeper one at 200, a fab shop its own on abrasives, all off one price list. The rep never looks up a price or edits a quote by hand.

On screen: a Trade Volume price list with per-product, per-quantity breaks, assigned to each customer so the right price lands on every order.

Odoo Trade Volume price list with per-product volume breaks: Hex Bolt at 50 and 200 boxes, Cut-off Wheel, Nitrile Gloves, Safety Glasses, Ratchet Strap — One price list, volume breaks per product, assigned per account

Ship what you have, backorder the rest.

A trade account orders 600 boxes, you have 380 on the shelf. Odoo ships the 380, invoices it, and puts the remaining 220 on a backorder that fills itself when stock lands. Partial shipments stop being a chase, and the customer is never left wondering.

On screen: a backorder for 220, linked as the back order of the original delivery and its sales order, ready to ship the moment stock is available.

Odoo backorder delivery WH/OUT/00006 for 220 boxes, marked Back Order of WH/OUT/00005, product available — The remaining 220 on an auto-created backorder, ready to ship

Freight lands in the product, not a mystery expense.

Inbound freight, duty and brokerage capitalize into the real cost of the goods they arrived with. A $650 LTL freight bill spreads across 2,400 boxes of bolts, so the bolt's true landed cost is $14.27, not $14.00, and every margin and GMROI downstream stays honest.

On screen: a landed cost tied to the receipt, the freight rolled into inventory value and the unit cost.

Odoo landed cost record: inbound freight of 650 dollars capitalized onto the hex-bolt receipt, original value 33,600 becoming 34,250 — Inbound freight capitalized: $33,600 of bolts becomes $34,250 landed

Odoo physical inventory cycle count across zones and branches: PVC Pipe, Anchor Bolts and Welding Rod counted with small variances, others clean — Count while you run: a live cycle count across the zones, variances caught and posted, no shutdown

A verified build, not a demo skin.

Every number ties: on-hand inventory value equals the general ledger to the penny, landed freight sits in the product cost, and stock is real-time across both branches. We prove that before we hand it over, and we build it on your own SKUs, price lists and vendors, so you watch your business run first.

Why Odoo

The operational core a distributor runs on. Without the six-figure ERP.

You outgrew QuickBooks plus a bolt-on inventory tool, but a $50,000-plus Epicor Prophet 21 or Infor build is hard to justify at your size. Odoo covers the work a $5-20M wholesaler actually needs, the same whether you move fasteners, MRO, building products or industrial supply, on one database at SMB pricing. Four things do most of it:

Reorder & replenishmentMin and max on every SKU by lead time and demand. Odoo drafts the PO when stock hits the floor, in the vendor's pack size, and moves stock branch to branch on its own.

Real-time multi-branch stockOn-hand across the DC and every branch, live, down to the bin. Inter-warehouse transfers and putaway keep counter and inside sales honest about what is really available.

Landed cost & true marginFreight, duty and brokerage capitalized into unit cost, so GMROI and margin per SKU are real, not overstated. Trade and volume pricing apply per customer automatically.

One databasePurchase, Sales, Inventory and Accounting on one system, with credit limits, 3-way match and automated dunning. No QuickBooks-plus-a-bolt-on-tool, no re-keying, no spreadsheet seam.

Compare

From a patchwork to one system.

A $5-30M distributor is rarely choosing between two ERPs. You are running QuickBooks for the books, a separate inventory tool for stock, and spreadsheets to hold it together, then fighting the seams. Here is what one Odoo database replaces.

What you run today	Covered by Odoo
QuickBooks for the books, with inventory bolted on	Accounting with real-time inventory valuation (value equals the GL)
Fishbowl or a separate inventory tool	Inventory: multi-warehouse, bins, reorder rules, barcode
Spreadsheets for reorder timing and stock counts	Reorder points that draft the PO + ABC cycle counts
Manual price lookups and re-typed quotes	Customer-assigned trade / volume price lists
Freight expensed separately, margin overstated	Landed cost capitalized into true unit cost and GMROI
Chasing late trade accounts by hand	Credit limits + automated payment follow-ups (dunning)

Honest scope: classic trading-partner EDI with big-box buyers runs through a connector (SPS Commerce or TrueCommerce), and statistical demand forecasting is an add-on rather than native. The six-figure vertical ERPs (Epicor Prophet 21, Infor) are built for $50M-plus wholesalers; at your size, Odoo covers the same operational core at SMB pricing.

Questions

What distributors ask us.

Will Odoo do reorder points and draft the purchase orders?

Yes, natively. You set a min and max per SKU per location. When forecasted stock (on-hand plus incoming, less outgoing) drops below the min, Odoo drafts a purchase order up to the max, in the vendor's pack size, ready for you to approve. It runs on the scheduler or the moment a sales order pushes stock below the line, so you stop reordering by gut feel.

Can it handle multiple warehouses and branches?

Yes. Each branch is its own warehouse with its own stock, bins and zones, and you see on-hand across all of them in real time on one screen. Inter-warehouse resupply routes move stock branch to branch, and reordering rules can trigger those transfers on their own. Enable multi-step routes before you add the second warehouse and it comes together cleanly.

Does Odoo do trade, volume and customer-specific pricing?

Yes. Price lists override the sale price and can be scoped to a customer, a product or category, a quantity break, or a date window. Assign a price list to an account and every order for that customer uses it automatically, with volume tiers by minimum quantity and cost-plus or discount formulas. Contractor, trade and national-account tiers all live in one place instead of in the rep's head.

Can Odoo replace QuickBooks and our separate inventory tool?

That is the usual reason distributors move. Odoo's Inventory posts stock moves to Accounting in real time, so inventory value and the general ledger stay in lockstep in one database, instead of QuickBooks plus a bolt-on inventory app that never quite syncs. You keep double-entry accounting, credit limits, 3-way match and dunning, and drop the re-keying and the spreadsheet seam.

Does it handle landed cost on imports?

Yes. Landed costs capitalize freight, duty, insurance and brokerage into the product's unit cost, allocated across the shipment by quantity, value or weight. Your product categories need FIFO or average costing (not standard), which is the right setup for a distributor anyway. The result is a true landed margin and GMROI, not a number inflated by freight sitting in overhead.

What about EDI with big retail or distribution partners?

Odoo's native EDI covers e-invoicing and Odoo-to-Odoo documents. For classic trading-partner EDI with big-box buyers (850 purchase orders, 810 invoices, 856 ASNs), you connect a translator such as SPS Commerce or TrueCommerce, which integrate with Odoo. We scope that in the fit if you trade with partners who require it, rather than pretending it is native.

How does the free personalized trial work?

We build Odoo on a slice of your real SKUs, price lists and vendors, and hand you a working system to click through: reorder points drafting POs, stock across your branches, trade pricing applied, landed cost in the margin, the books tying. You see your own business running before you decide, on a booked call, at no cost.

See your distribution business running in Odoo.