10-part guide
Selecting the wrong odoo partner is the single fastest way to turn a reasonable ERP budget into a write-off. After 100+ Odoo implementations across the US, Canada, and France, our team at...
Why this matters
Selecting the wrong odoo partner is the single fastest way to turn a reasonable ERP budget into a write-off. After 100+ Odoo implementations across the US, Canada, and France, our team at Octura has seen every failure pattern. Most come down to one root cause: the buyer did not ask hard questions before signing. The...
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Odoo awards Ready, Silver, and Gold tiers based on certified headcount, closed implementations, and customer satisfaction scores. Any firm calling itself an "Odoo partner" without confirming its current tier may be reselling without standing. Ask for the partnership page link and cross-check on odoo.com/partners. Tier...
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Some partners close deals with senior consultants and hand off to juniors or offshore resources the day after signing. Ask point-blank: "Will the person who ran this discovery call be on the project?" If the answer involves an "account manager" or a "project manager who coordinates resources," dig further. At Octura,...
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Time-and-materials is a budget vacuum on ERP work. A serious odoo partner commits to a fixed-price scope after a structured discovery phase, and can tell you exactly what falls inside that scope and what triggers a change order. "We bill by the hour and adjust as we go" is not a methodology; it is a liability transfer...
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"We have many satisfied clients" without a name is a red flag. A partner with real deployments will name two or three reference customers, in your industry, in your size range, and put you in contact directly, without a handler on the call. If the partner cannot offer this, treat the gap as evidence, not a scheduling...
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Every mature Odoo partner leads with "configure first, customize last." Studio handles minor UI tweaks; standard Odoo modules cover 80 % of mid-market workflows. A partner who reaches for custom code on day one is either padding hours or has not learned the product deeply enough. Ask to see a recent project where they...
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Data migration is where most implementations run late and over budget. Ask for a specific methodology: how many migration rehearsals, what the cutover window looks like, who validates data integrity, and how open balances in Accounting are reconciled. A vague answer ("we have migration tools") is not a methodology....
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North American tax, multi-state nexus, GST/HST/QST, AvaTax integration, is not a given in any Odoo implementation. Ask whether the partner has configured AvaTax for multi-state clients, handled QST filings under Quebec's Loi 25 data rules, and reconciled US GAAP vs. IFRS chart-of-accounts requirements. A partner with...
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Go-live is not project end, it is the highest-risk two weeks of the entire project. A credible odoo partner defines a post-go-live hyper-care period: dedicated response-time SLA, named contact, and a daily check-in cadence. "Send a ticket" is not hyper-care. Ask how many hours per day the partner is available in the...
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Every custom module should live in a version-controlled Git repository owned by you, not the partner. Ask to see a sample of their delivery documentation: module README, upgrade notes, unit-test coverage, and a changelog. If the partner delivers code without documentation, you will be unable to maintain or upgrade it...
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Odoo releases a major version every October. Custom code written without upgrade discipline becomes technical debt after 18 months. Ask the partner how they handled the v16 → v17 or v17 → v18 upgrade for an existing client. A partner who says "you'll need a new project" every time is normalizing a recurring cost that...
Bonus
Ten questions are a start. A structured evaluation process turns those answers into a defensible vendor decision. Here is the checklist we walk prospects through at Octura:
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Full guide on octurasolutions.com