Location/Region: Barranquilla, COL
Industry: Dental supplies
Apps implemented: Sales, Inventory, Accounting, Manufacturing, Invoicing, Employees
Software
Replaced: In-house software
Company size: 107
Hosting type: Odoo Online
From its headquarters in Barranquilla, Adental has found in Odoo the ideal partner to efficiently manage every one of its operations: from the manufacturing of Custom-Made Oral Medical Devices to the nationwide distribution of dental supplies. With more than four decades in the market and steady expansion, the company implemented Odoo to face new accounting, operational, and regulatory challenges, optimizing its management and significantly reducing time and effort in key processes such as payroll, invoicing, and inventory control.
Founded in 1983 as a small dental lab, Adental has become a benchmark company in Colombia’s dental sector. Today, it has a team of more than 100 people, including dental technicians and administrative staff, and two solid business units: the manufacturing of Custom-Made Oral Medical Devices (such as crowns, veneers, implant-based restorations, and others) and the official nationwide distribution of high-quality dental supplies and equipment.
Adental’s trajectory is rooted in the technical excellence of its employees, mainly highly skilled dental technicians who craft each piece according to the treating dentist’s specifications. Over the years, the company’s focus has been to provide technical support to dental clinics and practices, not to treat patients directly, while maintaining a continuous improvement approach in all its processes.
“With Odoo, we achieved 70% efficiency. It helped us structure processes, reduce paperwork, and complete tasks in less time.”
The Challenges Before Odoo: Lack of Integration and Limited Adaptability
Before implementing Odoo, Adental faced significant operational challenges. For case management in the lab, they had their own software, Adental Soft, which allowed them to log dental work but had limited integration with accounting. Information was scattered, tracking each job was cumbersome, and decision-making was rarely based on centralized data.
Additionally, the company used third-party software for some time, but it lacked the flexibility needed to handle Colombia’s localization requirements, especially with the arrival of mandates like electronic invoicing and electronic payroll imposed by the DIAN (Colombia’s tax and customs authority). The platform failed to adapt and created internal friction in essential processes.
"We had problems with inventory and invoicing. With Odoo, we can now track by batch, by expiration date, and respond more quickly to tax changes."
A turning point: Finding Odoo
The aim of modernizing processes came directly from the General Technical Director, Mr. Rafael Rincón Meza, who, in his vision for growth, sought a tool capable of adapting to the company’s expansion pace. On a consultant’s recommendation, Adental discovered Odoo: an ERP solution that adapts and scales according to each business’s needs.
Since implementing Odoo, Adental has achieved substantial improvements in multiple areas:
- Electronic payroll with less effort: With over 100 employees, managing payroll updates, salary rules, and reports used to be an extensive task. Now, the Payroll module organizes information clearly, reduces errors, and facilitates timely submission to the DIAN.
- Fast and customizable invoicing: The Invoicing module allows them to create tailored concepts, quickly incorporate tax changes (such as new VAT or tax rules), and maintain full traceability of each document, simplifying internal and external audits.
- Connected and strategic accounting: Odoo’s Accounting centralizes data, enabling more accurate reporting for the Manager, Partners, and other key stakeholders. This improved visibility translates into better-informed decisions.
- Inventory control by batch and expiration date: Previously, this tracking was manual and tedious. Now, with the Inventory module, Adental can manage incoming and outgoing products by expiration dates, optimizing purchases, preventing losses, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
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Traceability and collaboration with key features: Tools like internal notes, change logs, and the chatter feature allow any user to track an invoice, see who made changes, or review attached documents. This improves internal communication and reduces response times.
“Tasks that used to take hours now take less than a minute, such as issuing receipts through the Accounting module, significantly streamlining daily financial management."
What’s next for Adental?
The next step in Adental’s digitalization journey is the implementation of the Manufacturing app, a solution that will allow them to cost each product more accurately, identify savings opportunities, and boost productivity. While they already have access to the module, they plan to start using it in the medium term with dedicated and specialized staff support.
Additionally, the team continues to receive support from their current partner to fully leverage Odoo, further reduce paper usage, and automate processes that are still partially manual today.
Adental’s experience shows how a comprehensive tool like Odoo can transform complex operations into efficient, traceable, and adaptable processes. If you’re in the healthcare, manufacturing, or distribution sector and want to scale your business without losing control, Odoo could be the partner you need to take that leap.
Ready to create your own success story? Discover what Odoo can do for you.
