ERP for Subcontracting Businesses: Problems It Solves
Subcontracting means part of your production happens somewhere else, which is efficient but hard to control: your materials sit at a partner’s site, and you still have to keep stock and costs accurate. Continuing the series on industry problems and how ERP solves them, here is subcontracting.
Problem: components sent out go off the books
When you send raw materials to a subcontractor, they physically leave your warehouse but are still yours. Tracked badly, they simply vanish from your records.
How Odoo solves it: Odoo’s subcontracting handling keeps the components you send to a subcontractor visible as your stock, so nothing goes missing off your books while it is being worked on.
Problem: finished goods coming back are hard to reconcile
You expect finished products back for the materials you sent, but matching what returns to what went out is fiddly without a system.
How Odoo solves it: because the subcontracted product is defined with its bill of materials, Odoo knows what components a finished item consumed, so receiving the finished goods reconciles cleanly.
Problem: you do not know the true cost
With materials, subcontractor charges and your own overhead spread around, the real cost of a subcontracted product is unclear.
How Odoo solves it: bringing the component cost and the subcontracting charge together gives you a clear, accurate cost for each finished product.
Problem: managing multiple subcontractors
Different products, different partners, different arrangements, tracking it all by email and spreadsheet is chaos.
How Odoo solves it: recording each subcontractor and the products they make keeps every arrangement organised in one place, so you always know who is making what.
Problem: stock and production still need to connect
Subcontracting should not create a blind spot between your inventory and your production.
How Odoo solves it: because subcontracting sits inside the same system as inventory, purchasing and sales, the outsourced step stays connected to the rest of your operation.
Why work with me
I have set up Odoo for businesses built around subcontracting, so I understand tracking components off-site, reconciling finished goods and getting the costing right. I configure it around your real arrangements.
If outsourced production is central to your business, that is exactly what I help you get in control. Happy to talk it through.