Not every business that uses Odoo also wants to do its accounting in Odoo. Sometimes the accountant is tied to Exact Online, sometimes the administration has only just been migrated and nobody wants to touch it again. That need not be a problem: you can use Odoo for sales, inventory and projects, and leave the financial side in Exact Online.
The condition is that the two do not drift apart. That is what this integration is for.
What goes from Odoo to Exact
- Contacts — customers and suppliers you create in Odoo appear in Exact with the same number, so you can find them in both systems.
- Products — so that an invoice line in Exact does not arrive as a loose text line but is linked to a product.
- Invoices, including PDF — the sales invoice your customer received is exactly the invoice that can be found as an attachment in Exact. That saves your accountant a search.
- Payments — so that outstanding items say the same thing on both sides.
What comes back from Exact
The other way round, changes to contacts and products flow back to Odoo. That sounds minor, but it prevents the classic: the bookkeeper changes an address or VAT number in Exact, and three weeks later Odoo is still sending invoices to the old address.
How to set this up
The most important decision comes before the technology: which system is leading for which data? Our standard arrangement is that Odoo leads for everything related to sales, and Exact for the financial master data. Once that is settled, the rest is mapping work: linking general ledger accounts, VAT codes, journals and payment terms to each other.
Count on having to check your VAT codes manually. Odoo and Exact both think in VAT codes, but not the same ones. If you sell within the EU with reverse-charged VAT, or outside the EU, that is where it goes wrong if you don't sit down and go through it properly.
What to watch out for
- Numbering. Let one system issue invoice numbers. Two overlapping sequences is a problem you can no longer tidy up.
- Timing around month-end closing. Agree up to which point invoices still go into the current period.
- What you do not connect. Manual journal entries, depreciation and payroll journal entries belong in Exact and do not need to pass through Odoo.
Is this an interim solution?
Often it is, and that is fine. We regularly see this integration as a bridge: the company first starts working with Odoo for operations, and moves the accounting over a year later after all, once the confidence is there. But we see it just as often as the end state, for example at companies where the accountant prescribes the financial package.
What we don't do is pretend the integration is free in terms of maintenance. Two financial systems side by side means thinking twice about every change to your chart of accounts.
What it costs
At the time of writing, the integration is listed at €35 per month in the marketplace. View the Exact Online integration for the current specifications, or read how we Odoo implementeren.