Odoo 19 vs Pennylane
Pennylane excels at pre-accounting and at working with your accounting firm.
Odoo brings your whole business together, from project management all the way to the balance sheet.
Two different philosophies
This comparison is not just about accounting features. It is an architecture choice for your business.
The finance approach
Pennylane focuses on the financial essentials: collecting invoices, initiating payments, tracking cash flow and making life easier for your accountant. It is the ideal tool if your business operations are managed elsewhere.
The process approach
In Odoo, accounting is the result of your operations. An hour logged on a project creates an invoice line, which creates a journal entry. A manufactured product consumes components from stock and updates the inventory valuation. Everything is linked, with no connectors at all.
The accountant
Accounting firms often offer Pennylane because it is their production tool for the liasse fiscale (the French annual tax return package). Odoo sometimes requires the firm to adapt (through free portal access or FEC exports, France's standard audit file), but it gives the business owner back control of operational data.
The verdict by business area
A visual comparison of out-of-the-box functional scope (no custom development).
Accounting & Finance
CRM & Sales
Purchasing & Inventory
HR & Projects
Website & eCommerce
AI Automation
1. Finance, accounting & tax
The engine room: invoice processing, payments and French tax compliance.
| Feature | Pennylane | Odoo 19 |
|---|---|---|
| Financial accounting, subledgers and general ledger Complete coverage of company accounting. | Very advanced |
Very advanced |
| Vendor bills, OCR and reconciliation Automatic extraction of the vendor, amount and VAT from a PDF or photo. Smart bank reconciliation. | ||
| Vendor payments and batch payments Manage grouped payments for purchases. Pennylane offers a wallet (Qonto), Odoo handles SEPA XML exports out of the box. | Integrated account |
SEPA export |
| Analytic accounting (multi-axis) Tracking by job or cost center. Odoo handles complex hierarchies and automatic allocations from any document. | Built-in multi-plan |
|
| Fixed assets, prepaid expenses/deferred revenue, leases Depreciation calculation, cut-off and automatic generation of the related journal entries. | ||
| Multi-company Manage several entities. Odoo lets you run everything in a single database (shared products and contacts) with cross-company views. | Dashboard |
Single environment |
| Group financial consolidation A statutory consolidated view of a group's entities. | Multi-company KPI view |
Dedicated module |
| VAT and periodic tax returns Report generation. Pennylane excels at direct e-filing. Odoo handles the French VAT return format very well through its localization package. | Automatic e-filing |
Localized report |
| French annual tax return package (IS, CVAE, DAS2, IFU) Generation of the year-end filings for the tax authorities. This is Pennylane's main strength for accountants. | Production tool |
FEC export to the accountant |
| French e-invoicing (PDP) Getting ready for the tax reform. Both handle Factur-X. Pennylane is taking part in the PDP pilot (France's approved e-invoicing platforms). Odoo covers multi-format e-invoicing worldwide. |
2. Sales, customer relations and purchasing
Managing your sales cycle well before the invoice goes out, and structuring complex purchasing.
| Feature | Pennylane | Odoo 19 |
|---|---|---|
| CRM, pipeline and opportunities Manage a sales funnel (Kanban), follow up with prospects, analyze conversion rates. Pennylane relies on integrations (HubSpot, Pipedrive). | Via connectors |
Built-in & complete |
| Product catalog, variants and pricelists Manage complex product matrices and pricing by quantity or by customer profile. | Basic |
Very advanced |
| Complex sales workflows Down payments, progress billing (milestones), time-based billing, online payment directly on the quote. | Standard |
|
| E-signature for sales Get documents legally signed. Odoo has a dedicated app for any type of document (HR, Sales, Contracts). | Quotes only |
Across the board |
| Subscriptions and recurring revenue Recurring invoicing, renewals, automatic direct debits and MRR/churn tracking. | Full dedicated app |
|
| Requests for quotation (RFQ) and purchase framework agreements Advanced purchasing processes: consulting several vendors, managing blanket orders and "3-way matching". | Simple requests |
Built-in |
| POS (Point of Sale / checkout) In-store counter sales on a tablet, offline mode and connection to hardware (cash drawer, receipts). | Via connectors |
3. Supply chain, inventory and manufacturing
Managing the physical flow of goods through the business.
| Feature | Pennylane | Odoo 19 |
|---|---|---|
| Inventory & Warehouse Management (WMS) Multi-warehouse management, stock moves, routing rules (push/pull), internal transfers. | Stockpit integration |
Built-in & powerful WMS |
| Lots, serial numbers, barcodes and valuation Full upstream/downstream traceability, a mobile scanning app, and automated valuation (FIFO, weighted average cost). | ||
| Replenishment and MRP Purchases triggered automatically (at a minimum stock level) or production triggered using the Make-to-Order (MTO) method. | ||
| Manufacturing Bills of materials (BoM), work centers, routings, manufacturing orders and actual cost calculation. | ||
| Quality, Maintenance and Repairs Quality control plans (AQL), alerts, machine equipment management and after-sales service. | ||
| Equipment rental Availability planning (Gantt), late returns, and billing based on rental time. |
4. Projects, HR and Field Service
Tracking your people, their working time and billable assignments.
| Feature | Pennylane | Odoo 19 |
|---|---|---|
| Project management (Kanban / Gantt) Projects created from sales, task assignment, deadline tracking. | ||
| Timesheets Time logging. Odoo uses it across the board (projects, support tickets) to calculate profitability and bill actual time. | Accounting firm and client file logic |
Project logic |
| Field Service Technician scheduling, GPS location, service reports signed on mobile. | ||
| HR core, time off and scheduling Employee directory, time-off approval, employment contract management and team schedules. | ||
| Recruitment (ATS) and appraisals Job postings, applicant tracking, annual reviews and goal management. |
5. Platform, Web and Support
Digitizing your communication and tailoring your tools.
| Feature | Pennylane | Odoo 19 |
|---|---|---|
| Website builder (CMS) and eCommerce Run your showcase website or online store (B2B/B2C) without an external connector. The stock and prices shown online are those in the ERP. | Via connectors |
Built-in |
| Helpdesk, live chat and customer support Customer ticket management (after-sales), a public knowledge base and live chat on your website. | ||
| Marketing Automation and Email Marketing Create targeted email campaigns based on customer behavior, manage surveys and forms. | ||
| DMS / general-purpose document management Secure storage, document approval, shared HR spaces, etc. Pennylane's DMS is centered on invoices. | Finance-only |
General-purpose |
| "Low-code" customization (app building) Create new business modules, add fields, edit PDFs or automate workflows without a developer (with Odoo Studio). | API only |
Odoo Studio |
In short: how do you decide?
You should go with Pennylane if...
Your business operations are simple. You have no complex manufacturing, no advanced inventory management (MRP/WMS), or you already use specialist software that works for you (e.g. Salesforce for CRM, Shopify for eCommerce) and that you can easily connect together.
Your top priority is to optimize the pure finance workflow (collecting invoices, fast payments) and to share a common tax filing platform with your accounting firm, which often knows this tool inside out.
You need Odoo if...
Accounting is only the end of your chain. You need the quote, the project, the hours worked by your team, the expense report and the invoice to be linked. You want to bring your prospecting (CRM), any inventory and your web portal into a single tool, to get rid of double entry and parallel tracking spreadsheets for good.
With Odoo, accounting is not a separate data entry task: it is generated automatically in the background with every movement in your business (delivery, component purchase, approved timesheet). Odoo is a centralized business ERP that avoids "tool sprawl" and the hidden costs of dozens of connectors between different applications.
Let's talk about your Odoo project
Implementation, optimization or just advice: ask for a free initial strategic assessment to review your needs and processes.
By phone or video call, at a time that suits you.
Subscribe through a partner rather than directly
Hors du Commun, Odoo integrator in Lyon, is an official Odoo partner. Going through us costs you no more, and gives you three things a direct subscription does not.
A 60-day trial instead of 15
We extend your test database ourselves, so you can put the software through a real monthly cycle, month-end close included, instead of skimming through a demo.
3 to 10% off the license
On average, depending on your commitment. We know what to negotiate, and with whom at Odoo.
A free user seat for your accountant
We work with accounting firms that are Odoo partners, or negotiate access for your current firm.
Hors du Commun partner link.
Does your challenge go beyond accounting?
Pennylane handles accounting and invoicing. As soon as there is manufacturing, inventory or purchasing to manage, the question changes: it is no longer about choosing the accounting software, but the flow that feeds it. That is the work we do with manufacturing SMEs and distributors.
Odoo for manufacturing·Odoo for distribution and logistics·Client references