Don’t Let Dirty Contacts and Product Lists Sabotage Your ERP!!
f you’ve ever heard the phrase “crap in, crap out” , congratulations, you already understand the biggest risk to any ERP implementation.
When setting up Odoo, the temptation is to just “import what you’ve got” — the old customer list, the jumbled spreadsheet of SKUs, that contacts export from your last CRM. But here’s the hard truth: importing dirty data into Odoo will cost you far more later in time, trust, and rework than taking the time to clean it now.
What Does "Clean" Mean, Anyway?
Whether it’s contacts, suppliers, products, or price lists, clean data means:
- No duplicates . One record per customer, per product, per supplier.
- Standardised formatting . Proper capitalisation, consistent phone and ABN formats, valid email addresses.
- Correct fields . Names in name fields, not jammed into a company name; SKUs properly aligned to product variants.
- No ghosts —.No empty rows, long-departed clients, or products you no longer sell.
Why It Matters in Odoo
Odoo is a powerful ERP, but it’s only as good as the information it holds. If your product list is full of junk data or your contact list is full of fluff, you’ll immediately run into:
- Sales confusion .. Duplicate products or customer records confuse staff, kill trust, and slow down quoting.
- Inaccurate reporting . Garbage in your categories or prices leads to unreliable revenue and margin data.
- Automated chaos . Odoo’s automation tools (like reordering rules, marketing flows, or invoicing) depend on clean, structured input.
You wouldn’t install a kitchen full of mismatched pipes so why wire your ERP with mismatched records?
Common Dirty Data Culprits
- CSV files exported from old systems with 50+ columns of unused junk
- Legacy pricing structures baked into product names (“Widget – $49.95”)
- Multiple versions of the same customer under different spellings
- Excel workbooks with embedded formulas, merged cells, or bad encoding
- Product lists without units of measure or tax information
A Better Way to Begin
Before importing into Odoo, invest in a data cleansing sprint. This might include:
- Deduplicating with tools like Excel, OpenRefine, or Python scripts
- Mapping and validation to ensure each column has a purpose
- Standardisation of naming, tax codes, pricing rules, and categories
- Removing noise .If it’s not needed, don’t import it
And importantly, involve the people who’ll use the data, your sales team, warehouse staff, or finance team ,to help identify what’s worth keeping.
Clean Data = Confident Go-Live
Starting with clean data isn’t just about looking professional ,it’s about giving your team confidence in the system from Day 1. If Odoo is going to be the “source of truth,” then that truth needs to be accurate, consistent, and trusted.
Because in the world of ERP, the old saying holds true:
Crap in, crap out. Clean in, clarity out.
We want to help your Odoo implementation succeed. Want help cleaning up before go-live? Reach out for a data audit or migration plan .......no pressure. Just don’t settle for second-rate spreadsheets. Your Odoo ERP deserves better.