To face new commercial challenges in a changing world, it’s important for companies to know how to effectively manage their resources, the information flow must be efficient and accessible to all stakeholders and customers.
During the past year, the world has experienced a drastic change in every aspect of life. The pandemic forced every company, especially growing businesses, to find new ways to stay connected to their customers and maintain cash flows. This article is for those who want to explore the benefits that Odoo brings to the table: how to use technology to manage sales and maximize the resources on hand.
Port Cities have compiled a list of the major features in Odoo Sales, one of the most common applications in Odoo and how they can help make your sales a smoother transaction.
Odoo - the best ERP for growing businesses
The open-source nature of Odoo allows you to choose from hundreds of applications the ones that best meet the needs of your company and thanks to the interconnection between apps, Odoo is one of the best Business Management Softwares in 2021, and the most fitting option for small businesses because of its affordability, scalability and usability.
Odoo Sales app
The Sales application in Odoo lets Sales teams create quotations and share them with customers directly which in turn grants customers access to relevant information about their purchases and keep in contact with the Sales team: all interactions in just one place.
In Odoo, your customers can view online quotations or a complex comparison of different quotations. This action happens right after a customer submits an RFQ: no information will be lost as Odoo tracks and records all the necessary data along each step of the sales process. The aggregated data about the customer will help the salesperson provide the best quotation(s) that fits the created profile and his requirements. Check out this example of an insurance broker who is able to advise the most suitable and personalized options of insurance packages among an enormous database, to each of their customers, using Odoo Sales.
A custom-designed quotation generated in Odoo from Tenzing Pacific
1. Pricing
You can create and configure your company’s pricing strategies in Odoo by establishing a list of prices or pricing rules. You can determine the pricing rule by time (for example: End of season sale), by quantities bought (e.g. Buy 3 get 10% discount), by groups of customers and a lot of other possibilities.
Specific coupons and discount programs, completely customizable in Odoo, will help the company retain customers and drive engagement.
Define your pricing strategy
Discounts: This option allows you to apply discounts directly to your customers’ orders (either RFQ or SO), as you please.
Pricelists: This feature enables several pricing options per product according to Customer Segmentation, Seasonal Pricing, Prices per minimum quantity, Prices per country, etc.
Coupons: Share with your customers coupon codes that can be applied directly to their purchases.
For the proposal of this article, we will focus on the Pricelists functionality and its variants.
Configure your Pricelists
First of all, to apply a pricing strategy for your products, head over to the Odoo Sales app, in the menu Settings → Pricelists (be sure to activate the function by clicking on the checkbox).
To set up rules, go to the link labeled Pricelists or if you prefer, from the menu Products → Pricelists → Create. When a new window pops up, first enter a Reference (name) for the price list so you can easily identify it, then proceed to add the Price rules.
2. Increase your sales by upselling
Increasing the sales volume is every company’s business goal, one that remains a priority during such a time of difficulties as the Covid-19 pandemic. This is why Odoo has a feature for upselling products that the customer may not know he needs during a sales process, like related products or accessories to the main product the customer is looking at. Configuring this option not only allows you to increase sales but also lets the customer get access to special discounts or rewards he’s not aware of, making the upsell a win-win situation.
Add upselling products
To activate this functionality, head to the Sales application, in the menu Products → Products. Select a product in your database and use the tab Sales to add the Optional Products you want to upsell with the main product, Once you are done, just save the changes, and the next time a customer selects the main product they will be able to view similar or complementary products to the item.
3. Effective team management
As a business grows the priority to increase the productivity of human resources becomes more and more relevant. For this purpose, Odoo has the option for your company to create and manage as many sales teams as you need, set targets for each team, and keep track of their progress.
To create a new Sales Team, just go to the menu Configurations → Sales Team → Create.
Team up
Make everyone part of the team by creating a sense of belonging to the company and reinforcing the company’s corporate identity. You can choose a team leader for your Sales team and add as many members as you need to.
As no sales team is the same as the other, once you have defined the members and a team leader, establishing an invoicing target can help you motivate your Sales teams to work together and accomplish that target. Having a common goal helps the team create strong ties with each other.
The dashboard
From the menu Orders → Sales Team, you have access to a dashboard where you can easily visualize the work that is being done by each team, how the sales targets are evolving and the statuses of pending orders.
4. Reaching international markets
Using the Multi-currency option in Odoo allows you to create any sales document in different currencies, so reaching international markets will be as easy as doing business with your best clients.
Multi-currency is an option that needs to be activated from the Accounting/Invoicing module. One of the biggest benefits of having this feature is to help you expand your market and reach new targets.
Enable multi-currency
From the module Invoicing/Accounting select the menu Configuration → Settings → Mark the checkbox Multi-currency → Save → Activate Other Currencies. Automatically Odoo will populate the corresponding Journal entries and accounts to register the activities in foreign currencies.
Once this functionality ís activated you will be able to select as many currencies as you want by just switching on the currencies.
The configuration is complete once you have selected the currencies needed, then this will be available to be used directly in Sales orders and Invoices as it best fits your business.
5. Users’ portal
Odoo also presents customers the option to manage relevant information from a users’ portal. Sharing certain information with your customers gives them the possibility to read and view information related to their orders and stay updated so your team can focus on the other activities without failing to keep customers informed.
Giving access to customers
Although the configuration of the access is in the Contact module, it reverberates directly in the selling process and we will see why next.
Click on Create if it is a new contact and Save. Once you have created the customer who needs the portal access, find the menu Access → Grant portal access. In the pop-up window, enter the customer’s email, which will be used for his logins, and be sure to mark the checkbox In Portal, finally select Apply.
Sign and Confirm Orders
To activate this functionality go to the menu Configurations → Settings → Mark the checkbox Online signature. The first time the client receives the invoice he is invited to create an account to read a summary of his order. The next time you send quotations to the client he can instantly accept and sign them from the portal.
6. Reporting has never been easier
With Odoo, you don’t have to worry when it comes to preparing reports, every data in the system is analyzed and reporting takes a blink of an eye. In just a couple of minutes, you can create, compare and analyze useful and targeted information that will help you make the best decisions and take the next steps for your company.
Sales Report with Odoo
Thanks to the integration of the Invoicing/Accounting application with Sales and other apps, Odoo lets us create sales reports in a matter of seconds.
The information you will obtain about the company’s operations is presented, by default, as a dashboard, which can be changed with just a pair of clicks into a pivot table or a graph. You only have to choose the visualization you prefer and Odoo will do the hard work for you.
The sales analysis dashboard comes with several buttons and filters to help you analyze accurately every aspect of the sales operation. Whether you need to make some adjustments or help in the decision-making process.
Final thoughts
Odoo is the business management software for companies that need to take their operations to the next level. Whether you need to automate part of your business process or manage your resources, in Odoo you will find the best enterprise resource planning tool that will take your business to new heights.
If you are interested in adopting Odoo for your company or organization, do not hesitate and contact our consultants at Port Cities, one of the biggest Odoo partners worldwide. Whatever your business problem is, we have a solution for you. Schedule a demo to know how an Odoo partner can guide you to unleash your growth potential.