Odoo for Professional Services Firms

For a professional services firm, people's time is the product. Odoo connects selling that time, planning it, recording it and billing it.

From deal to project

Opportunities in CRM become quotes with service products. When the quote is signed, Odoo creates the project and tasks automatically, with the sold hours as the budget. No re-keying, and no lost scope.

Resource planning

The Planning app shows who is booked on what, by week. Planners assign people to projects based on skills and availability. Over-allocation is visible before it becomes burnout.

Timesheets

Consultants log time against tasks daily, from desktop or mobile. Managers validate before invoicing. Accurate timesheets are the foundation of everything else.

Billing models

Odoo supports the models services firms use:

• Time and materials
• Fixed price and milestones
• Prepaid hours and retainers
• Subscriptions for managed services

See Odoo timesheets and project billing for setup details.

Expenses

Travel and other billable expenses can be re-invoiced to the client at cost or with a margin, linked to the project.

Utilisation and profitability

Key reports:

• Utilisation: billable hours as a share of available hours, by person and team
• Project margin: revenue vs timesheet and expense costs
• Work in progress: delivered but not yet invoiced

Client portal

Clients can see their projects, tasks, timesheets and invoices in the portal, which reduces status emails.

Helpdesk for support contracts

Firms with support contracts can add Odoo Helpdesk, with tickets drawing down prepaid hours.

Where to start

Start with CRM, Projects, Timesheets and Invoicing. Add Planning and Helpdesk once the basics are working.

See our professional services industry page and Odoo Project.