Location/Region: St. Louis, MO
Industry: Retail/Manufacturing
Apps implemented: CRM, Sales, Website, Purchase, Inventory, Accounting, Quality, Employees, Manufacturing
Software
Replaced: QuickBooks, NetSuite
Number of users: 10
Company Size: 50
Hosting type: Odoo.sh
In 2006, Dale Schotte opened the first Park Avenue Coffee shop. What started as a single café soon grew into a thriving enterprise with six locations, a coffee roasting company, and a baking division—Ann & Allen Baking Company, established in 2009. Odoo has been part of their history, helping the entire business, which now operates under a holding company. Dale’s sister, Marilyn Scull, serves as COO.
Dale's journey into the coffee industry was unexpected. With a 20-year background in IT, he worked for a consulting firm and collaborated with someone who opened a coffee shop. Inspired by the experience, he decided to start his own business. As Park Avenue Coffee grew, the need to roast their own beans led to the launch of their roasting operations in 2012, further expanding their capabilities. Today, the company seamlessly integrates its café, roasting, and baking operations to serve a diverse and growing customer base.
The challenge:
Disconnected systems
For years, Park Avenue Coffee used QuickBooks Desktop, later transitioning to QuickBooks Online. However, as the company expanded, it required more robust inventory and manufacturing capabilities. QuickBooks Enterprise was used for the roasting company, Restaurant365 for coffee shops, and QuickBooks Online for the bakery.
With three businesses using different software solutions that didn’t communicate, inefficiencies became a major issue. Financial data was fragmented, inventory tracking was cumbersome, and manual data entry was unavoidable. The company needed a unified system to manage its growing business.
In 2021, Park Avenue Coffee sought a comprehensive ERP solution, selecting NetSuite for implementation. However, the process turned into a struggle, with promised features never fully implemented and costs escalating.
“They (NetSuite) promised us the world, but completely underdelivered. Even after years, we didn’t have everything we needed.”
After considering SAP, Oracle, and Acumatica, the team came across Odoo in early 2024, thinking, “This seemed too good to be true. We were paying $48,000 a year for NetSuite and still didn’t have a working system,” Dale said.
Game changer: Choosing
Odoo and Talus
The decision was reinforced when the team found a Reddit post, where businesses shared their positive experiences. This gave Park Avenue Coffee confidence that Odoo was the right choice.
Park Avenue Coffee chose Odoo and partnered with Talus ERP for implementation. Unlike their experience with NetSuite, this transition was efficient and well-supported. “It is a fantastic match. Their expertise helped us clean up and successfully transition from NetSuite to Odoo.” Dale Schotte, explained.
Since implementing Odoo, Park Avenue Coffee has experienced significant operational improvements:
- Faster Inventory and Year-End Accounting: Year-end inventory used to take a full week. Now, it is completed by January 2nd, along with all necessary accounting adjustments.
- Increased Efficiency in Sales and Order Processing: Using Odoo is much faster. With NetSuite, they were constantly waiting for screens to load. Now, everything is instantaneous.
- Seamless Multi-Company Operations: Odoo streamlined inter-company transactions. Café purchase orders automatically generate sales orders for the bakery, eliminating duplicate data entry.
Multi-company functionality was a huge win. In NetSuite, they had to delete entire entries when errors occurred. As Dale said, Odoo handles everything perfectly.
"Creating a sales order takes 75% less time, while fulfilling and invoicing orders is 90% faster than NetSuite."
Moving forward
Odoo has been a transformative solution for Park Avenue Coffee, streamlining operations and enhancing efficiency. By unifying its processes into a single system, Park Avenue Coffee has eliminated redundancies and positioned itself for sustained growth. With Odoo, the company is prepared to expand while maintaining excellence.
"The time savings, ease of customization, and intuitive interface make Odoo the clear choice. It just works. Dump NetSuite, go Odoo."
Just as Odoo has helped Park Avenue Coffee set the stage for expansion, it can do the same for businesses across industries. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing, services, or beyond, Odoo’s integrated and customizable platform empowers companies to optimize workflows, boost productivity, and scale seamlessly.
