Pro Dock and Door: Opening the Door to Better Communication with Odoo

America’s economy is fueled by the buying and selling of goods, with physical products being transported to and from locations on a daily basis. The efficiency of this system is critical to the success of individual businesses and the American economy as a whole. While not many may pay heed to the nitty gritty details of goods transportation, a company called Pro Dock and Door recognizes the importance of this system.

Pro Dock and Door, based in North Collins, New York, sells and installs high-performance doors and loading dock equipment to businesses in Western New York and the Buffalo area. Loading docks make the distribution process easier and more efficient by making a building or warehouse level with a truck to ease the transfer of products. Husband and wife team Mike and Megan Smaldino founded the company after being inspired to start their own business. Mike had previously worked as a sales representative at a vendor’s company and had abundant knowledge and experience with the industry, and wanted to take ownership within the field for himself. The couple went all-in on their new business venture, both quitting their previous jobs so they could focus entirely on Pro Dock and Door. The company now sells products from leading manufacturers to their customer base.

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As with all business owners, Mike and Megan sought the best tools to help their company flourish. Their success and continuing growth demanded business software to streamline communication and backend operations– this is where Odoo comes in.

As a fairly new company, Pro Dock and Door simply ran its business prior to Odoo using a combination of QuickBooks and manual data-keeping. Megan Smaldino, co-founder of the company, explains how Quickbooks was a “take-off” point for her business– their needs were simple and straightforward, and Quickbooks seemed like an ideal choice at the time.

[We] used it for our accounting and our payroll services for a while until we realized if we’re going to be growing, we’re gonna need to have something that will allow us to communicate better with our installers and our workers. So a scheduling feature, features that you can take pictures of the completed project, communicate between a few different people, whoever our employees are. Quickbooks wasn't really doing that; it was more of an internal, individual style.

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Megan explained that while Quickbooks was great for in-office use, she faced challenges with their old system when it came to field service. An example she gave is that she and her husband would constantly get calls from their installers asking where they were supposed to be and at what time for which client. With Quickbooks, there was no internal communication system, so detailed information was difficult to communicate and track.

If we were going to grow, it wasn't going to be with Quickbooks.

This realization led Megan to seek out a change in business software. The company considered Procore, Salesforce, and Total Service; however, all of these options were too costly, had an overwhelming and unnecessary number of features, and were seemingly not very user-friendly. After some research, Megan landed on Odoo. It offered a sweet spot when it came to a software solution that the other options simply did not– affordable, flexible, and user-friendly.

Although it was a lot of work, Megan says the company’s transition to Odoo was smooth. She particularly appreciates the customizability of Odoo and its ability to be adapted to her company’s specific needs:

I love how Odoo allows us to customize to our business– it doesn't ask us to conform to what’s already in there in the program. It was more an interview of what we need, and they suggested what to have.

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In terms of said features that Pro Dock and Door needed and got with Odoo, streamlined field service capabilities are at the top of the list. Odoo’s Field Service application has transformed the company’s daily operations into a much more efficient and automated process, directly addressing the lack of communication its employees felt with the old system:

It’s a lot less questions being asked– no one is calling us nonstop. I’ll post everything the week before; everyone goes ahead and looks at it on their device and sees where they’re at. Notes can be made. It’s almost like a group communication versus an individual, ‘I said this, and he said that,’ and we’re all confused.

While Pro Dock and Door still maintains a fairly simple workflow, using Odoo has made that process clearer and more connected for Megan, Mike, and their employees. With Odoo making both internal and external communication more efficient for the team, they can focus on providing loading docks and doors to local New York businesses. As the company continues to grow, Odoo’s customizability is prepared to grow with them– every step of the way.