Canzonia · Case Study Report
FILE NO. 02
Payroll for Hundreds, and a Shop Floor
Spreadsheets and Paper to One Platform
An embedded, multi-year partnership that moved a fast-growing Canadian manufacturer’s payroll, accounting, and manufacturing off spreadsheets and onto Odoo, with payroll running for hundreds every pay period.
By the Numbers
employees paid every pay period, on time and compliant with CRA filing obligations
payroll, accounting, and manufacturing, all live in production on one platform
MRP cutover, with Odoo running alongside the plant’s spreadsheets until the team retired them
lot traceability, tracing both up and downstream under real auditor requirements
The Challenge
A fast-growing Canadian snack-food manufacturer was outgrowing the spreadsheets and paper it ran on.
Production lived in Excel, pushed to the limits of what spreadsheets could hold, with no real-time visibility and gaps in quality control.
Separately, a growing headcount and finance function strained under manual work. They needed payroll, accounting, and manufacturing on one platform that could keep up.
Note 01
Client anonymized by industry. Delivered as an embedded partner, leading and mentoring the client’s internal development team.
What We Delivered
We embedded as the client’s senior developer for a multi-year rollout. To keep risk low, we shipped in sequence: payroll and accounting live in production first, then manufacturing.
PAYROLL
Canadian Payroll, with EFT
Rolled out Canadian Payroll with EFT across the workforce, carrying the company’s highest-exposure obligation onto Odoo without a missed period.
CUTOVER
A plant that never stopped
Odoo MRP ran in parallel with the client’s existing spreadsheets (kept as a live traceability backup) until the team was confident enough to retire them.
BANK REC
The card with no bank feed
Built a reconciliation importer for a corporate purchasing card that had no bank feed, parsing its CSV export so nothing had to be keyed by hand.
Payroll & finance
COMPLIANCE
Handled year-end CRA tax filing, Records of Employment through Service Canada, and automated email and print delivery of payslips and tax slips to every employee
ACCOUNTING
Took the accounting module live and built the client’s financial reporting in Odoo, working directly with their CFO
DATA MIGRATION
Backported financial history and carried over per-employee payroll balances, like accrued vacation, so the numbers were right from day one
Manufacturing
TABLET WORKORDERS
Custom workorders operators complete at the line, with supervisors managing from their PCs
BATCH TRACKING
Batch tracking tied to each run, feeding the finished-good BOM (the produced batch plus its consumer packaging)
LOT TRACEABILITY
Full-genealogy traceability that grew under real auditor requirements: tree view, expand-all navigation, and the specific columns the auditor asked for
SCHEDULING
A production-scheduling dashboard fed by live production data, so the warehouse could stage the right product and ship raw material ahead of each run
The Outcome
By the end of the engagement, payroll, accounting, and manufacturing were all live in production on one platform.
Payroll ran for hundreds of employees every pay period, the accounting team closed the books in Odoo, and the shop floor tracked every batch and lot on tablets.
The spreadsheets the plant once depended on were retired for good.
Because we worked embedded, mentoring their own developer throughout, the client kept that capability in-house rather than dependent on an outside consultant.
Note 02
Sequenced deliberately: payroll and accounting reached production before manufacturing began, so the highest-exposure work was proven first.
In Closing
Three functions, one platform, and the capability to run it stayed in the building.
More Like This
Other Odoo engagements, from a shop floor to a trading desk.
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