Purple Toad Winery is a Kentucky producer of gourmet sweet wines with a tasting room, a warehouse and distribution across the state and beyond. As the business grew, its legacy systems became a daily drag: simple reports took too long to load, invoices queued behind slow screens, and any change to a workflow or document meant paying for outside help.
In September 2025 the winery began moving from NetSuite and QuickBooks to Odoo, and it went live on March 1, 2026. The company now runs inventory, sales, CRM, invoicing and accounting in one system hosted on Odoo.sh. Confirmed sales flow automatically through production and accounting, stock moves cleanly between locations, and the team tailors its own workflows with Odoo Studio. With around 10,000 invoices raised each year, even small time savings per invoice add up to hundreds of hours annually.
About Purple Toad Winery
The winery was founded in 2009 in Paducah, Kentucky, after a family trip to Napa Valley sparked the idea. The early years were hands-on: the family planted grapes, learned to make wine and even built the facilities themselves. Today Purple Toad is a well-known name in the region, with around 30 people, a warehouse in Louisville and a tasting room in Bowling Green. General Manager and Winemaker Steven Dossey leads the business, which sets itself apart by making sweet wines from primary fruit rather than leftover material, so guests can taste exactly what is in the glass without needing specialist wine knowledge.
The Challenge
Before Odoo, Purple Toad relied on NetSuite and QuickBooks. The biggest frustration was performance. Opening an inventory report or processing an invoice could mean long waits, and Dossey recalls clicking something in NetSuite and waiting around 20 seconds for it to load just to see basic information. Multiplied across a team handling thousands of orders and invoices, those delays affected productivity every day.
The systems were also hard to adapt. Changing a workflow or a document template usually required external support and extra cost, which slowed the winery's ability to respond to operational needs. Data validation errors and inconsistencies in inventory made it harder to trust the numbers, and there was no automated path that carried a sale through production and into accounting.
- Slow legacy systems, with some NetSuite screens taking around 20 seconds to load
- Delayed invoice processing across roughly 10,000 invoices a year
- Inventory validation errors and inconsistencies between locations
- Costly external support needed for even small workflow or document changes
- No end-to-end automation from confirmed sale through production and accounting
The Solution
Dossey began searching for a new ERP out of frustration with NetSuite. After evaluating several options, the team chose Odoo following a detailed demo process in which it could ask in-depth questions and verify that each requirement actually worked before committing. The winery implemented Odoo CRM, Sales, Inventory, Invoicing, Accounting and Studio on Odoo.sh.
Inventory across locations
Odoo Inventory gives the team fast, reliable access to stock data and removed the validation errors seen in the previous system. Transfers between the winery, the Louisville warehouse and other distribution points now run smoothly.
Automated sale-to-accounting flow
Once a sale is confirmed in Odoo Sales, it moves automatically through production and accounting, with tasks advancing from stage to stage without manual handoffs. This end-to-end flow did not exist before.
CRM linked to invoicing
Customer interactions, order changes, delivery adjustments and product issues are logged in Odoo CRM alongside invoices. Notes and communication history sit in one place, giving internal teams and drivers a transparent record instead of digging through email.
Studio and API customisation
With Odoo Studio and API integrations, the team adapts workflows and documents in house, including using AI-assisted development, rather than paying for outside services. External tools connect to Odoo for analysis and reporting, such as tracking store performance and spotting distribution issues.
Implementation Journey
Implementation began in September 2025 and the winery went live on March 1, 2026, roughly six months later. The project replaced both NetSuite and QuickBooks and consolidated six Odoo apps on Odoo.sh hosting for a company of about 30 people. Because the team had verified its requirements during the demo phase, the rollout focused on configuring inventory transfers between locations, connecting sales to production and accounting, and building internal capability to customise the system with Studio after go-live. Odoo published the customer story in August 2026.
The Results
The clearest gains are in speed and reliability. Inventory data is now fast to access and consistent, sales reports can be generated quickly with simple filters, and the old waits for basic information are gone. In accounting, the time needed per invoice has fallen, and with around 10,000 invoices a year, Dossey notes that saving even a few minutes on each adds up to hundreds of hours annually. The winery has also gained independence: instead of paying for every change, staff refine processes themselves. That foundation is supporting growth, as Purple Toad has recently expanded distribution into Louisiana and is evaluating Odoo integrations with Toast POS and Shopify to streamline its sales channels further.
- Went live on March 1, 2026, about six months after starting implementation
- NetSuite and QuickBooks replaced by one Odoo platform
- Reduced time per invoice across roughly 10,000 invoices a year, adding up to hundreds of hours annually
- Inventory validation errors eliminated and transfers between locations streamlined
- Confirmed sales now flow automatically through production and accounting
- Workflow and document changes handled in house with Odoo Studio
Key Takeaways for Growing Businesses
Verify before you buy
A demo that lets the team test real requirements, rather than accept promises, reduces the risk of a stalled rollout. Growing businesses should insist on seeing their own scenarios work before committing.
Small savings scale with volume
When a process runs thousands of times a year, shaving minutes off each instance returns hundreds of hours. Volume-heavy tasks such as invoicing are often the best place to measure the value of a new system.
Build internal capability to adapt
Being able to adjust workflows and documents without outside help keeps operations agile and controls cost, especially for hospitality producers juggling tasting rooms, warehouses and distribution.
Technology Stack
Odoo Inventory, Odoo Sales, Odoo CRM, Odoo Invoicing, Odoo Accounting, Odoo Studio, Odoo.sh
This story is compiled by the ONEXT DIGITAL editorial team from public sources and is shared as an industry reference. Purple Toad Winery is not an ONEXT DIGITAL client.
Sources: https://www.odoo.com/blog/customer-reviews-6/purple-toad-winery-optimizes-inventory-sales-and-invoicing-with-odoo-faster-access-to-data-and-streamlined-operations-2364