Odoo and BSimple: an honest comparison

The key facts

• Odoo is an open modular ERP — apps for accounting, CRM, inventory, manufacturing and more, deployable cloud or self-hosted; you assemble and maintain the footprint.
• BSimple is an operations-first record — one dataset for stock, purchasing, orders, portal, production and invoicing, with the accounting handoff outside.
• No invented specifics: Odoo's editions, modules and pricing change; check them at the source.
• The decision is scope: how much system do you want to own and administer?
• Where it fits: this page is one branch of the inventory management guide.

What Odoo is, at the model level

Odoo is an open-core business suite: a base platform plus a large catalogue of apps — inventory, accounting, CRM, manufacturing, e-commerce — that companies assemble into their own system. It deploys as Odoo Cloud or self-hosted, editions differ in what they include, and the footprint you turn on is the footprint you maintain. Its strength is breadth with a consistent data spine: one database across the apps you choose.

The honest trade in that model: breadth and flexibility on one side; implementation weight, configuration depth and administration on the other. Companies with someone who owns the system do well with it; companies without that person often spend their energy administering rather than operating. We will not quote Odoo's current edition prices or module counts — they change, and Odoo's own pages are the source.

Where BSimple differs — deliberately

We build BSimple, so weigh that. BSimple is not modular and not an ERP: it is one record for the operational core — live multi-location stock, reorder-driven purchasing, orders through the customer portal, recipes and traced batches, counts from any phone browser, and invoicing with the Xero or MYOB handoff as the boundary. There is nothing to assemble, no modules to licence separately — every feature is in every plan, from $180/month (AUD) — and the administration is ours: cloud, backups, updates.

The deliberate gaps: no CRM app, no helpdesk, no accounting inside, no MRP scheduling, no HR. If your company needs those inside the same system, Odoo's model is the better fit for that requirement — the ERP boundary explains where that line sits. The production comparison and the production-side detail cover the manufacturing overlap.

The evaluation that settles it

Ask the scope question first: do you want to assemble and administer a suite, or run a record? If assemble — Odoo's catalogue is the point; price the implementation and the administration honestly. If run — compare records: live quantities, movements as transactions, audit trails, the accounting handoff, on your own products in both trials. The public-discussion pattern on open systems is worth reading for the self-hosting trade specifically, whichever way you lean.

BSimple's trial is the full product, no card to start — one afternoon on your own products and the scope question answers itself.