Accounting Automation Using Odoo and Bill.com for Small Businesses

Why Accounting Automation Is Crucial for Small Businesses?

Though it may seem manageable initially, manual accounting workflows often lead to inefficiencies that negatively affect business performance. Here's how:

Delayed Financial Reporting

Manual workflows limit the accessibility of timely and accurate financial information. This leads decision-makers to react to older, potentially obsolete information and make poor strategic decisions.

Data Entry Errors

Even simple mistakes that your staff make in the spreadsheet records or manual systems results in incorrect recordkeeping. Such a small mistake can hurt everything from tax filings to financial statements.

Missed Payment Deadlines

Automation allows for the ease of managing stress associated with due dates. Without it, it can be easy to be distracted and forget when your bills are due. Moreover, this can lead to late bills, unhappy vendor relationships, and potential service or supply interruptions for your organization.

Limited Cash Flow Visibility

When you're not entering data regularly in real-time, as a business owner, you will fail to understand your cash position. This impacts your forecasting, planning, and investment decisions.

However, automation software can automate up to 80% of manual financial analysis and reduce financial errors. Therefore, using tools like Odoo and Bill.com, you can streamline your accounting automation. They completely eliminate manual data entry needs, offer timely updates, and even narrow out the need for manual approvals.

Your business will have access to timely and reliable financial reports while reducing human error in your accounting processing. Also, you will enjoy more control over your payment schedule.

What Is Odoo?

Odoo is a customizable, open-source, all-in-one business software geared towards small to medium-sized businesses. Odoo's flexibility keeps it unique from others. It is modular, which means you can start with one app and grow as your business requires.

Odoo Accounting software, one of Odoo's most popular applications, simplifies the stress of accounting responsibilities. It allows all consolidated bookkeeping under one application. Here is an overview of Odoo Accounting applications:

General Ledger and Chart of Accounts

You can view, organize, and track your whole ledger with full efficiency. Also, you can make a chart of accounts for your business and then tailor it according to your specific business structure.

Customer Invoicing and Vendor Bills

Odoo also helps you make customer invoices as well as process vendor bills with ease. Also, automate recurring invoices to maximize and optimize your time and set invoice due dates to ensure quick payment.

Bank Reconciliation

Within Odoo Accounting, there is a bank reconciliation application to automatically match your bank transactions against your internal transactions. This limits the amount of time reviewing your bank statement and improves precision.

Tax Calculations and Compliance

Odoo makes handling and managing tax rules for both domestic and international compliance easy. Odoo supports automated tax calculations and tax reports, as well as audit preparation.

Real-time Financial Reporting

You can get simple, up-to-the-minute financial information whenever you require it. Dashboards provide an accurate picture of your cash flow, profits, and expenses.

Its flexibility and affordability make it an ideal choice for small businesses looking to customize their accounting systems. You can run any sort of business, whether retail or manufacturing, from this platform in affordable packages.

What Is Bill.com?

Bill.com is another cloud-based platform that offers out-of-the-box automation solutions. It automates accounts payable (AP) as well as accounts receivable (AR) processes for small and growing businesses.

The platform replaces slow and error-prone paper-based accounting processes, enabling a more intelligent digital workflow that saves you time and money. Here is how Bill.com is doing that:

Intelligent Digital Bill Capture Using OCR

Bill.com utilizes OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to automatically extract key data from bills, thereby reducing manual data entry.

Automated Approval Workflows

You can easily customize your approval chains to ensure the right person receives the correct bill at the appropriate time. There will be no email threads or spreadsheets required for this task.

Secure Electronic Payments (ACH, card, wire transfers)

Directly pay your vendors via ACH, credit card, or wire transfer—no need for check writing, printing, or in-person signatures!

Detailed Audit Trails and Logs

Each Step has a timestamp and user details, so when it's time for the audit, it becomes quick and easy.

The AP automation market is going to grow at a rate of 13.9%, and platforms like Bill.com have a significant role in this. With Bill.com, finance teams can eliminate paper and accelerate payments while gaining better visibility into their cash flow.

The Benefits of Integrating Odoo With Bill.com

The combination of Odoo's ERP system with Bill.com's payment automation platform provides a solid accounting platform for small businesses. Moreover, this integration between Odoo and Bill.com allows you to streamline your company's operations, eliminate your staff's manual entry and workflow, and provide greater control over finances.

Automated Data Sync

Any invoice you generate out of Odoo Accounting will automatically sync to Bill.com, saving you from manual data entry. So, once a payment is made on Bill.com, it updates automatically in the invoice status in Odoo. Hence, your bookkeeping will be up to date instantly without a delay.

Faster Approvals and Payments

You can use Bill.com on a mobile device, allowing bill approvers to approve bills from anywhere in the world at their convenience. As you sync it with Odoo, the transactions that have been approved get sent to Odoo accounting immediately, with no delay.

Better Cash Flow Management

Odoo is capable of providing dashboards that allow users to view the status of every invoice in real time, from due dates to payment planning. Therefore, with the visibility of future cash needs, expenses, and due dates, you can easily avoid late payments.

Improved Accuracy

The real-time data exchange between the two platforms virtually eliminates duplicate entries and manual data entry errors. Additionally, businesses receive more accurate financial reports, enabling them to stay compliant and make informed business decisions.

Audit-Ready Records

With every transaction, you will get detailed logs, timestamps, and user actions. This audit trail is not only helpful for tax filing but also facilitates financial reviews, reinforcing internal controls.

As your business continues to grow, Odoo and Bill.com provide you with automated, secure, and future-proof accounting without increasing headaches.

Why Small Businesses Choose Odoo + Bill.com?

Small businesses often operate on a lean budget, so time and accuracy are particularly crucial for them. That's why so many growing businesses use the integration of Odoo and Bill.com to make accounting easy.

Reduced Manual Work

Bill.com enables innovative OCR technology, which automatically pulls data directly from invoices. It will sync the data to Odoo Accounting in a single process, eliminating repetitive inputting and reducing errors.

Faster Bill Approvals

Approval workflows in Odoo and Bill.com ensure that specific bills are routed and approved efficiently. With the addition of mobile approval from Bill.com, bills can be approved even faster, reducing the likelihood of late payments.

Real-Time Financial Insights

With Odoo dashboards that sync with Bill.com, business owners get an immediate look at their cash flow, invoices, and expenses. Even with vast amounts of data, businesses can make smarter and quicker decisions.

Scalable Automation

As the business grows, the integration will increase accordingly. You can process five invoices or five hundred invoices through the integration, and it does not require additional personnel. You can also add more Odoo modules in the future, such as CRM, inventory, or HR systems, to the integration at a later date.

Therefore, integrating Odoo with Bill.com is a necessary step that will make your business one step ahead of the others. With this smart integration, you can save money, effort, and invest both in creativity to upscale your small business.

Conclusion

Silent Infotech is here to help growing businesses grow through accounting automation using Odoo & Bill.com. We will make billing, approvals, and financial reporting simple. Get in touch with us today to get integrated so your business can move to the next level—faster, cleaner, and smarter.