An Odoo alternative for Belgian freelancers and small companies

Why so many Belgian business owners look for an Odoo alternative

Odoo is not an invoicing tool, it is an ERP. The distinction sounds academic until you live with it. An ERP assumes you will describe your company inside the software first: your flows, your rules, your access rights, your chart of accounts, your approval steps. Once that work is done the machine is powerful. You just need the time, the appetite and sometimes the budget to do it.

A freelancer invoicing twenty clients a month has no such problem to solve. They want to send a clean invoice, know what they owe in VAT on the twentieth, take payments at the counter without fighting a terminal, and hand documents to their accountant without losing a Sunday over it. Between that need and a modular ERP sits a gap many people only discover after signing.

The second reason comes up in almost every conversation we have with users: the hidden cost of the rollout. The licence is one thing, the implementation is another. As soon as an integrator joins to configure, migrate, train and maintain, the real bill has little to do with the per user price shown on the website.

What Odoo does better than we do, and it deserves saying

Comparing honestly also means admitting where the other side wins. Odoo covers an enormous functional scope, and it covers it well. If you have manufacturing needs, an ambitious online shop or highly specific internal processes, no simple tool will replace a configurable ERP.

The open source model matters too. You can have a custom module built, move hosting, take your database with you. For a company with a technical team or a trusted partner, that is a real advantage we do not offer.

• Manufacturing, bills of materials and production orders
• A full online shop wired into your stock
• Very specific internal processes with tailored approval rules
• Groups of companies and multi entity consolidation
• Custom module development thanks to the open source code
• A network of integrators across Belgium

The comparison, point by point and without generous rounding

The table below does not compare feature lists, an exercise where everyone ends up ticking the same boxes. It compares how each tool puts you to work: what you have to decide before you can invoice, who installs what, and what is ready the moment you log in.

The difference fits in one sentence. With Odoo you build your software. With us you use it as it comes and adjust three settings. Both approaches are defensible, they simply speak to different companies.

Peppol and the Belgian mandate, with no module to switch on

Since 2026, invoices between Belgian VAT registered companies have to travel in a structured electronic format. A PDF attached to an email no longer counts. Both solutions let you comply, the question is the road you take to get there.

At Novadesko, access to the Peppol network is included in the subscription and live from the start. Your identifier is built on your company number, you look your client up in the directory, you send, and the invoice lands straight in their software. No document counter, no credits to top up, no separate operator to contract.

With Odoo, electronic invoicing runs through the Belgian localisation and the configuration of the relevant modules, sometimes with network access billed separately depending on the channel you pick. Nothing insurmountable, but it is one more building site on a list that is already long when you are starting out.

• Sending and receiving in Peppol BIS 3.0, compliant with the EN 16931 standard
• An identifier based on your company number, scheme 0208
• Looking the recipient up in the directory before you send
• No document quota and no credits to buy
• Supplier invoices arriving in the same flow as your sales

The certified cash register, the point that decides it for hospitality

If you run a restaurant, a chip shop, a salon or a store, the till is not a detail. The Belgian registered cash register scheme requires compliant hardware, a fiscal data module, a regulated receipt and a level of traceability the tax authority can audit.

Odoo does offer a point of sale that meets the Belgian scheme through its localisation, provided you start with the right version, the right hardware and an installation done by the book. It works, it is even common, but here again it assumes an integrator or solid technical skills.

Novadesko was built with the till at the heart of the product rather than bolted on. Register, payment terminals, invoices and bookkeeping share the same foundation: a receipt cashed in the evening shows up in your revenue and your VAT without anyone retyping a thing.

What it really costs over twelve months, not the headline price

Putting two monthly prices side by side says very little when the business models differ. What counts is what you will have paid after a year, training and setup included.

Our pricing is easy to state: the subscription starts at 19 euro excluding VAT per month, with no commitment, and includes Peppol invoicing, CRM, stock and cash flow. Your accountant's access to your file is free. There are no setup fees because there is nothing to set up.

With Odoo the price is built per user, with variations by plan and hosting, and an implementation billed in days usually sits on top. That service is legitimate, it pays for real work. It simply belongs in your calculation before you sign, not after.

Which one fits your actual profile

Here is what we would say on the phone, including when the answer does not suit us. There is no universal winner, only situations.

Odoo is the right call if you manufacture, if you steer several entities, if you run a demanding online shop or if your internal processes need something no standard tool covers. It is also the right call if you already have an integrator who knows your trade, because that relationship is worth a lot and is hard to replace.

Novadesko is the right call if you are self employed or lead a team of fewer than twenty people, you invoice, you take payments, you track some stock, and you want all of it inside one readable subscription. Your gain is mostly time, in exactly the places where an ERP would ask for it.

• Freelance service provider: Novadesko, up and running the same day
• Retail or hospitality with a till: Novadesko, for the built in certified register
• Company of five to twenty people in trade or services: Novadesko covers it without a project
• Manufacturing, bills of materials, assembly: Odoo, no hesitation
• Complex online shop or group of companies: Odoo, no hesitation
• In house technical team and appetite for custom code: Odoo

Leaving Odoo without breaking your invoicing

Fear of migration paralyses more owners than price does. That fear is largely overblown once data travels in standard formats, which is the case here.

Your clients, your items and your invoices export from Odoo as CSV and import into our side. Your numbering picks up where it stopped, which avoids the gaps in the sequence no accountant enjoys. Your Peppol identifier does not move either: it belongs to your company, only the network registration is updated, and your clients keep sending you invoices without changing anything on their end.

The most comfortable moment to switch is the close of a VAT quarter. That said, a mid year change goes perfectly well too: keep access to your old environment during the transition, and run both side by side for a few weeks if that puts your mind at ease.

Frequently asked questions