What is profitability?
Profitability is not just an accounting indicator. It is the concrete expression of your company's economic performance. It tells you whether your efforts – human, financial, commercial – translate into value.
However, be cautious: profitability is not solely reflected in an annual income statement. It is often hidden:
- A product may be sold in large quantities but have low margins.
- A customer may be loyal but very demanding and unprofitable.
- An activity may seem strategic but drain your resources without return.
Analysing profitability involves examining the internal mechanics of your business. Understanding what brings you income, what costs you, and what hinders your performance. Without this, you are navigating blindly, even with a good revenue stream.
Why is analysing your profitability and margins essential?
Because a company can grow... and become poorer.
Because margins deteriorate silently, without anyone noticing.
Because revenue alone is a deception.
Examining your profitability means:
- Preserving your margins in a context of inflation or rising costs
- Acting before it’s too late (cash flow decline, team burnout, poorly calibrated prices…)
- Distinguishing the customers, products, and channels that create value
- Putting an end to beliefs: “This product is our best-seller” (yes, but at what cost?)
This allows you to make the right trade-offs :
Should you keep this customer? Rethink your product range? Reorganise a team? Review your prices?
With reliable and segmented indicators, you no longer decide on intuition. You decide with full knowledge of the facts.
Why use Odoo with We Doo Accounting to track your profitability?
Odoo is much more than an ERP. When properly configured, it is a powerful tool for economic analysis.
But in 80% of cases, its analytical capabilities are underutilised.
We make Odoo your profitability management tool by:
- Setting up a robust analytical accounting system (axes: product, customer, project, BU, channel…):
- Defining relevant analytical axes according to the activity (products/services, project, site, team, etc.)
- Creating analytical plans
- Associating accounting documents with these structured axes
- Establishing automatic allocation rules to ensure reliable calculations:
- Automate analytical allocation by linking accounting accounts to defined analytical plans
- Integrate payroll into analytics
- Include overhead costs by allocation keys.
- Structuring dynamic reports and KPIs integrated into Odoo, without using Excel:
- Gross/net margin per product
- Client profitability
- Average cost per project/service/site
By allowing you to track the profitability of your projects in real time.
- Avoiding the trap of manual extractions, which are sources of errors and time loss
- Establishing a regular monitoring process for you:
- Organisation of monthly or quarterly reviews with executives, BU managers, project leaders…
- Definition of alert threshold
With our method, you transition from an "administrative" ERP to an accurate decision-making tool.
Profitability becomes a living indicator, updated in real time.
To remember:
Odoo alone does not guarantee profitability.
- But structured intelligently, it becomes a powerful tool for understanding what brings in revenue, what costs
- Decide with reliable data
- Act before the margins deteriorate
WE DOO ACCOUNTING at your service for your profitability analysis and margin tracking
Because we don't just "do the accounts."
We are Odoo experts, specialists in business management, and strategic partners for your performance.
- Our strengths:
- A tailored approach: we adapt to your industry, your jobs, your challenges
- An accessible vocabulary, clear deliverables, and beneficial indicators
- A decision-oriented logic, not just reporting
- Technical expertise in the Odoo ERP, to ensure reliability and automation
We support you over the long term, including initial audits, implementation of tools, monthly or quarterly follow-ups, and decision-making assistance.
Example:
A B2B services group, with €12M in revenue, has scaled back its high-profile but low-profit activities. Result: +5 percentage points in net margin, with no growth in revenue.
Our mission: to empower you to manage your profitability in an autonomous, sustainable, and clear-sighted manner.