The Challenge
A growing trading company used Odoo as its ERP system for order processing, warehouse management and invoicing, but its accounting was done in Lexware Office. The monthly process: an employee manually exported all invoices from Odoo, reformatted them and typed them into Lexware Office. Customer numbers had to be kept in sync manually in both systems. With more than 300 invoices per month, this process was error-prone, time-consuming and barely manageable.
Our Solution
We developed a custom Odoo add-on that provides seamless integration between Odoo and Lexware Office:
Automatic Invoice Export
As soon as an invoice in Odoo reaches the status "Posted", it is automatically transferred to Lexware Office:
- All invoice data is transferred in full: line items, tax rates, discounts, payment terms
- Format conversion adapts the Odoo data structure to the Lexware Office REST API
- Duplicate detection prevents double postings when synchronizing again
- Credit notes and cancellations are also transferred correctly as offsetting entries
Bidirectional Customer Number Synchronization
We solved the core problem of duplicate data maintenance with a bidirectional sync:
- New customer in Odoo → is automatically created in Lexware Office, and the Lexware customer number is written back to Odoo
- New customer in Lexware Office → is detected and linked in Odoo during the next synchronization
- Master data changes are propagated in both directions, governed by a configurable master priority mechanism
- A mapping field in Odoo shows the corresponding Lexware customer number directly in the contact form
Error Queue with Retry
Not every transfer succeeds on the first attempt, API limits, network problems or validation errors can occur:
- Failed transfers end up in an error queue with a detailed error description
- Automatic retries at configurable intervals (1 min, 5 min, 30 min, 2 h)
- Escalation via email notification after repeated failures
- Manual correction and retransmission possible directly from the queue
Real-Time Status Dashboard
A clear dashboard in Odoo shows the current synchronization status:
- Number of transferred invoices (today, this week, this month)
- Open errors in the queue with priority
- Last successful sync time per data type
- Historical success rate as a chart
The Result
- Fully automatic invoice transfer, more than 300 invoices per month without manual intervention
- Consistent customer numbers in both systems through bidirectional synchronization
- Time savings of about 40 hours per month in accounting preparation
- Error rate reduced from 5–8% previously to below 0.3%