Odoo for Construction Companies
Bay Forward implements Odoo for general contractors, specialty subcontractors, civil builders, and developers. Job costing, progress billing, field labor, and equipment in one system, with CPA-led finance built in from day one.
Your partner in building smarter, scalable digital systems for long-term success
Bay Forward is an ERP consulting firm, not a staffing agency. We do not place bodies and bill hours. We scope outcomes and deliver systems.
2014
founded by two
former PwC CPAs
professionals across the US, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, and Saudi Arabia.
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+
certified Odoo consultants, 50+ accountants and CPAs
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clients served
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Construction Needs Job Costs While the Job Is Still Open
An estimate that never becomes a budget. A change order built before anyone priced it. Retainage sitting in receivables as if it were collectible. Timesheets arriving Monday for work done last Tuesday.
Each gap is small until it becomes a WIP schedule assembled three weeks after close, on a job that finished two months ago.
Odoo closes the gap because analytic accounting sits under every transaction. A purchase order, a subcontractor bill, a field timesheet, and an equipment charge all post to the same cost code on the same job. Budget against actual becomes a live report instead of a month end reconstruction.
What We Build in Odoo for Construction
Job Costing and Cost Codes
We design the cost code library and analytic plan before anything is configured, so labor, material, subcontract, equipment, and overhead report the same way on every job.
Progress Billing
Schedule of values billing in the AIA G702 and G703 pattern, produced from Odoo data. Revenue recognized on percentage of completion, so the income statement follows the work and not the cash.
Retainage, Both Directions
Retainage withheld by owners posts to its own control account, not standard AR. Retainage you hold from subs is tracked separately and released against closeout. This is where contractors quietly lose money.
Change Orders and Commitments
Requested, priced, approved, billable. Nothing reaches the field unapproved, and nothing approved goes unbilled at closeout. Subcontracts and POs register committed cost on issue, not on invoice.
Field Time
Mobile time entry against job and cost code, foreman approved, costed at burdened rates. Prevailing wage classifications configured where public works applies. Crews get two or three screens, not an ERP menu.
Equipment and Fleet
Internal hire rates charge owned plant to jobs, tied to maintenance schedules and meter readings. Owning cost against recovered cost per machine becomes visible.
WIP and Reporting
Cost to date, billings to date, over and under billing, and earned revenue built from live transactions. Dashboards extend into Power BI through our data engineering team.
Build a Better Construction Operation
Bring us your estimate template, one live job, and last month’s WIP schedule. In one session we will show you how that job would be structured, costed, and billed in Odoo, and where the current process is losing margin.
Is Odoo the Right Fit?
Odoo fits most small and mid-sized contractors moving off spreadsheets or QuickBooks. It covers job cost, procurement, field time, equipment, and full accounting in one modular system without enterprise overhead.
If you run multiple entities, joint ventures, or a construction arm beside property management, NetSuite may fit better. Large contractors needing enterprise consolidation usually land on Oracle Fusion.
We map how your jobs are estimated, built, and billed before recommending anything.
What We Manage in Odoo for Healthcare
Cost & Budget Management
Cost code structures and estimate to budget handoff Subcontracts, purchase orders, and committed cost
Change Orders & Billing
Change order pricing, approval, and billing Schedule of values and AIA style progress billing
Retainage & Field Costs
Retainage receivable and retainage payable, aged separately Field timesheets, burdened rates, and prevailing wage
Subcontractor Compliance
Subcontractor compliance: W-9, insurance certificates, licences, lien waivers
Insurance & Pharmacy
Equipment hire rates, maintenance, and cost recovery
WIP & Business Structures
WIP, over and under billing, percentage of completion Multi-entity, multi-division, and joint venture structures
Estimates that never become budgets
The approved estimate loads in as the original job budget on the same code structure the estimator used, so there is no rekey and no drift.
Change orders built before pricing
An approval gate sits in front of the field, and every approved change lands on the next pay application automatically.
Retainage treated as normal receivable
Separate control accounts on both sides, aged independently, released against milestones. No slow write off of money you are owed.
Labor cost arriving too late
Time is captured in the field with foreman approval, so a drifting job shows it while there is still work left to correct on.
WIP schedules built by hand
Cost to date, billings, and earned revenue come straight from Odoo, which shortens the close and gives your surety and lender a schedule that reconciles.
Why Contractors Work With Bay Forward
Founded in 2014 by two former PwC CPAs. Odoo Silver Partner with 520+ clients across 1,400+ projects, delivered by 200+ professionals across the US, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, and Saudi Arabia.
CPA-led job
costing
WIP, retainage, and percentage of completion are designed by people who have to defend those numbers to an auditor.
Minimum
customization
Standard Odoo first, custom code only where construction genuinely has no native equivalent. Cheaper upgrades, easier support.
In-house
delivery
Certified Odoo consultants, 70+ developers, and the accounting team are all Bay Forward staff. The people who scope your project deliver it and support it.
Every contract
type
Lump sum, cost plus, GMP, unit price, and time and materials, each with the billing and revenue treatment it requires.
Odoo for Construction, Answered
Each job is an analytic account with cost codes beneath it. Every PO, subcontract, bill, timesheet line, material issue, and equipment charge posts to a job and code, so budget against actual and cost at completion report natively. The work is designing the code structure correctly up front.
Yes, with configuration. Schedule of values billing covers work completed this period, stored materials, previous billings, percentage complete, retainage held, and balance to finish. Retainage receivable and payable are set up as separate control accounts with a release workflow.
Usually not. Procore handles drawings, RFIs, submittals, and daily logs. Odoo is the financial and operational backbone. Contractors already on Procore keep it and integrate cost data. Contractors who are not drawing heavy consolidate onto Odoo alone.
Those were purpose built for construction accounting and go deeper on union and certified payroll. The trade offs are licensing cost, rigidity outside accounting, and thin coverage of CRM, procurement, and equipment. Odoo needs design work to get there, then covers the whole business at a lower total cost. The decision usually turns on union and prevailing wage complexity.
The data a WH-347 needs, meaning classification, hours by job and day, wage rate, and fringe, is captured through configured timesheets. Many contractors keep their payroll provider and feed it costed hours from Odoo. See payroll services.
Only if the interface stays small. Crews get time entry, receipt confirmation, and photo upload. Everything else stays in the office. Rollouts fail when a superintendent is handed a full ERP menu.
A single entity contractor on a standard scope typically runs a few months. Multi-entity groups, prevailing wage work, fleets, and integrations run longer. We give a firm estimate after discovery, not off a rate card.
Yes, including open job balances, committed POs, subcontract balances, retainage, and cost to date on live jobs, with cutover planned around your billing cycle. See migrating from NetSuite to Odoo.
