If your company sells hours, expertise or projects—a consulting firm, an agency, an architecture studio, a software factory, a law firm or an engineering firm—your biggest asset isn't inventory: it's your team's time. And when that time is scattered across Excel spreadsheets, emails and separate invoicing software, it gets lost, underbilled or out of control.
This is where Odoo for service companies changes the game: it connects the sales proposal, project planning, time tracking, invoicing and project profitability analysis in a single flow. In this guide you'll see how that cycle is built and what to consider in the Chilean context, where electronic invoicing with the SII (Chile's tax authority) is mandatory.
Why service companies need a different kind of ERP
A retail or manufacturing business measures its health in stock and product margins. A service company measures something else: billable vs. non-billable hours, team utilization and margin per project. The classic problem is disconnected tools:
- The salesperson closes a proposal in a spreadsheet.
- The team logs hours in another file (or doesn't log them at all).
- The admin team invoices at month-end with incomplete data.
- Nobody knows in real time whether a project is making or losing money.
That fragmentation has a measurable cost: hours worked that are never billed, scope creep without a change order, and decisions made too late. If you're moving off spreadsheets, our guide to migrating from Excel to an ERP will help before you go further.
Odoo's strength is that Sales, Projects, Timesheets, Invoicing and Accounting share the same database. A single source of truth, with no re-entering data between systems. If you're still evaluating the platform, start with What is Odoo?.
The complete flow: from proposal to payment
Here's what a well-built services cycle looks like in Odoo:
- Quotation (Sales / CRM). You create the opportunity and the quotation with service lines. You can sell blocks of hours, by milestone or as a fixed-scope project.
- Automatic project creation. When the sale is confirmed, Odoo generates the project and its tasks. The sales order stays linked to the project.
- Planning. You assign owners, dates and budgeted hours per task.
- Time tracking (Timesheets). The team logs its time against each task from the browser or mobile. Each hour is flagged as billable or non-billable.
- Invoicing. You invoice according to the agreed model (see the table below) and issue the Electronic Tax Document (DTE) with the SII.
- Profitability analysis. Odoo compares the project's revenue against its actual costs and gives you the margin.
The key detail: because everything is connected, logged hours turn directly into invoice lines. No more month-end “how many hours do we bill this client?”
Odoo project management: the heart of the operation
Odoo project management combines Kanban, list, Gantt and calendar views so each role can work the way it prefers. What matters for services:
- Tasks with budgeted and actual hours side by side, to catch deviations in time.
- Subtasks and milestones for phased projects (typical in engineering, construction and software development).
- Customer portal: the client logs in to see progress, approve tasks and review documents, which cuts down on status meetings.
- Project templates so you don't start from scratch on recurring services.
- Integration with Documents and Sign (electronic signature) for change orders and formal approvals.
The Project app is also the foundation for cost control: each timesheet entry carries a cost (based on the team member's hourly cost), and that cost feeds profitability with no extra manual work.
Hourly billing: the models Odoo supports
Not all service companies bill the same way. The good news is that hourly billing and its variants are covered natively. These are the most common models:
| Billing model | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| By logged hours (Time & Materials) | You invoice the time actually logged in timesheets | Consulting, support, ongoing development |
| Fixed price / fixed-scope project | Agreed amount regardless of hours; the margin is tracked internally | Turnkey projects, design |
| By milestones | You invoice when each phase or deliverable is completed | Engineering, construction, implementations |
| Retainer / prepaid block of hours | The client buys hours in advance and they're drawn down as they're used | Agencies, maintenance, legal advisory |
| Recurring subscription | Automatic periodic billing with the Subscriptions app | Software, managed services, SaaS |
In every case, when issuing the invoice, Odoo generates the corresponding DTE with the SII (taxable or exempt invoice, credit or debit note), because Chilean electronic invoicing is part of the localization. This avoids the classic double work of “invoicing in one system and filing in another.” You can dig deeper into the tax scope in our guide on how to implement Odoo in Chile.
Project profitability: stop guessing your margin
This is the real differentiator for a service company. Project profitability calculates itself when revenue (invoices and sales orders) and costs (logged hours, expenses and project purchases) live in the same place.
For each project, Odoo provides indicators such as:
- Margin = invoiced revenue − actual costs (hours + expenses + subcontracts).
- Billable vs. non-billable hours, to measure real efficiency.
- Utilization rate of the team (how much of the available time goes to billable work).
- Budget progress: hours consumed vs. budgeted, with early warnings of cost overruns.
When this data is clean and connected, the natural next step is advanced analytics. With Business Intelligence (Podiux) and Power BI connectors you can build dashboards for utilization, project pipeline and revenue forecasting, and even get automated alerts when a project crosses a margin threshold. And with AI automation (Kersify) you can automate timesheet reminders or each project's weekly summary.
Useful integrations for service companies in Chile
A service company in Chile doesn't operate in isolation. Odoo integrates with the relevant local ecosystem:
- Human resources and labor costs with Buk, so the real hourly cost feeds profitability.
- Legal practice management with Lemontech, key for law firms and compliance teams.
- Payment providers (Transbank, Getnet, Mercado Pago, Fintoc) when there are online payments or advance payments.
- Native SII electronic invoicing, with CAF (folio authorization files issued by the SII) and DTE configured.
Is Odoo the best option for your service company?
For most Chilean service companies, Odoo offers the best balance of functional depth, native integration and cost. Compared with more rigid or expensive solutions, it's worth reviewing our comparisons, for example Odoo vs SAP Business One or Odoo vs Defontana, and if you're just starting to choose a platform, the guide on how to choose an ERP for SMBs.
The deciding factor isn't just the software, but who implements it. KPB Solutions is an Odoo Gold Partner (top 5% worldwide), with experience in the SII localization and in the local integrations a service company needs. Learn about our approach in Odoo Implementation.
In summary
Odoo for service companies solves the industry's core problem: turning hours into invoices and invoices into margin, without anything getting lost along the way. With a single proposal → project → hours → invoice → profitability flow, you gain real-time control and stop underbilling.
Want to see what this flow would look like with your company's real processes? Book a meeting and let's design your service operation on Odoo together.
