Budget Marine

It was a very special project. Odoo Experts implemented Odoo in the Caribbean. We were on-site during the last week before the Corona lockdown. After the global outbreak of the pandemic, we continued the project online. And in record time!

Budget Marine

Budget Marine is the leading supplier of ship and boat maintenance products in the Caribbean. They sell marine equipment from 12 stores in 9 different countries in this region. Their assortment of 65,000 products is sourced from around the world and delivered from their warehouse locations in Sint Maarten and Trinidad.

Budget Marine contacted Odoo Experts in January 2020 to ask if we could provide Warehouse Management Systems and integrate them with a newly purchased POS system.

Erwin van der Ploeg: “We gave two demonstrations of Odoo. Not only the Odoo WMS, but also all other possibilities such as Sales, Point of Sales, and Accounting were shown. Budget Marine was impressed by the capabilities of Odoo. This led to the decision to halt the purchase of the new POS system.

Later, Odoo Experts were asked to perform a gap analysis of Odoo for Budget Marine on the island of Sint Maarten. After an intensive week on location, we had all the information we needed to review the project and took the last flight back before the Corona lockdown began in the Caribbean and the Netherlands.”

Anton Blok: “Odoo Experts have proven to be the right choice for our transition to Odoo. With 5 base currencies, 9 tax jurisdictions, 13 locations, and more than 60,000 items, we needed a partner who was organized, reliable, and efficient. And we had 4 ½ months to get it done.

Together with Odoo Experts, the Budget Marine team managed to go live from the first presentation in January 2020 to July 1, 2020. During the process, we reviewed workflows, designed customizations, implemented training schedules, and dealt with Covid-19.

A transition from one ERP to another is never easy, and despite all the planning, there is no way to anticipate all the complications that inevitably arise. Our transition was no different; issues did come up. However, thanks to the preparation and expertise of the combined BM/OE team, we managed and resolved them effectively.

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I highly recommend Erwin and his team, job well done.

The project

Due to the corona outbreak, the start of the project was completely different from what we expected. All stakeholders worked from home, which added an extra challenge to the implementation. The project team quickly concluded that this challenge also had an advantage. All warehouses and stores were closed, allowing everyone to work on the Odoo project.

The following challenges had to be implemented/integrated into Odoo:

• 9 companies / countries
• 12 warehouses
• 17 point of sales (with barcode scanners and receiptprinters)
• 59.000 contacts
• 65.000 products en variants
• 8 currencies
• Intercompany-sales
• Ventor Tech Barcode Warehouse-solution (https://ventor.app)
• Slim4 interface for inventory optimizationhttps://www.slimstock.com)

The biggest challenges were speeding up the POS to load 65,000 products and developing multiple currencies in the Odoo Point of Sale App. On the islands in the Caribbean, people pay with multiple currencies. This means that something sold in USD can be paid partly in USD and partly in EUR. Moreover, this can be done with cash and by card. The customization we made in the Odoo POS makes this conversion option superfast and allows for payments in multiple currencies.

To optimize inventory and the purchase of new stock, Budget Marine uses the inventory optimization tool Slim4 from Slimstock. Odoo Experts created an interface to provide daily sales, inventory, and purchase information to calculate optimized stock. Slim4 produces a daily purchase order file that is imported into Odoo.

For the largest warehouse in Sint Maarten, the Odoo barcode scanning solution from Ventortech was chosen. This scanning application was expanded with an additional priority selection method to direct order pickers to priority bins instead of using the standard Odoo FIFO. The Android scanner application has many more features than the standard Odoo scanning application and is also more user-friendly.

Due to the expiration of the old software solution on July 1, 2020, Budget Marine went live, just 3 months after the start of the project. An amazing achievement by all involved and just in time for the end of the lockdown and the return of their customers.

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“Thank you for all the hard work over the past days, weeks, or rather months. We have landed the plane, and I am really pleased with how smoothly we landed today! Most locations have sold, purchased, received transfers between branches, etc. We have undergone extra training, and everything was well received."

Odoo Experts B.V.

Odoo Experts has been the leading Odoo Gold Partner since 2012. Odoo Experts started working with Odoo from version 6 and has a proven track record of over 100 Odoo projects. Odoo Experts is based in Zaandam (next to Amsterdam) in the Netherlands and has a great team of consultants helping anyone who needs assistance with implementing and using Odoo.

They continue to challenge customers to keep things simple instead of rushing into customizations. They are true Odoo experts and have experience in retail, wholesale, and service companies. The consultants at Odoo Experts love a challenge and know all the possibilities of Odoo. If it isn't a standard functionality, they know how to create it.