Evaluation guide
Looking for an Odoo alternative?
The real question is not which is better. It is whether you want a platform you configure into your business, or one that already assumes it.
Two different bets
Odoo is a horizontal ERP with a very wide module catalogue, typically implemented with a partner who configures it to your business. That is a genuine strength: given enough configuration it can model almost anything, across almost any industry.
The trade is that hospitality specifics are something you build toward rather than something you start with. Whether that is the right trade depends entirely on how unusual your operation is and how much implementation you want to own.
The questions below are the ones where a hospitality-specific system and a configurable ERP tend to feel most different in daily use. Ask both.
What Odoo is
A horizontal, open-source ERP with a broad module catalogue, most often deployed with an implementation partner who configures it for the business.
Who it suits: Operations with unusual processes, in-house or partner implementation capacity, and a preference for configuring a general platform rather than adopting an opinionated one.
The questions to ask both
These are hospitality-specific by design — they are where the two approaches diverge most.
When a supplier invoice arrives at a new price, does every dish using that ingredient re-cost by itself?
In Qvian: Yes — including through sub-recipes, so a house sauce used in six dishes moves all six. You do nothing.
Will it tell you when a dish's cost is built on incomplete data, or show a confident number either way?
In Qvian: Qvian flags those dishes rather than pricing them as though the missing ingredients were free. A number you cannot trust is worse than no number, and most systems will not tell you which is which.
A guest charges dinner to their room. Does the restaurant earn that revenue and the hotel owe it — or does it vanish into one pot?
In Qvian: A real balance between them, tracked and settled. It is how you find out whether your restaurant actually makes money instead of disappearing into the resort.
If you run two dive products off the same boat, can it stop you overselling the hull?
In Qvian: Seats belong to the trip, not the product. Fourteen seats are fourteen seats however they are split between products — overselling is not something you watch for, it cannot happen.
Can it calculate Green Tax at checkout with exemptions applied, and hand you the MIRA sheet?
In Qvian: Yes — the right rate for your property, the twelve-hour rule, and exemptions for Maldivians, under-twos and resident-permit holders. Your monthly filing is an export.
Does it show what a delivery does to your margin before you receive it?
In Qvian: Your average cost, the new average cost, what you currently charge, and the resulting margin — with the option to re-price while the invoice is still open, rather than six weeks later after you have sold the stock at the old price.
Does closing the day post your books and create your tax records, or is that a separate month-end exercise?
In Qvian: Closing the day does both. And the system knows exactly which days you have not closed — which is usually the reason a return comes out short.
What actually happens to the data you already have?
In Qvian: Products, customers and suppliers import with mapping and duplicate detection, and there are dedicated importers for common systems. An existing menu comes across with the recipes built underneath it, not just names and prices.
When Odoo is the better fit
Said plainly, because it is sometimes true.
- You need manufacturing, field service or a supply chain well beyond hospitality, across several industries.
- You have implementation capacity — internal or a partner you trust — and you want a platform you shape rather than one that arrives opinionated.
- You want to self-host and own the deployment outright.
The only comparison figure we quote
A competitor offered our clients free service for life. They stayed, at several times the price. That is the only comparison statistic we have any business quoting.
Frequently asked
Not in the horizontal sense. Qvian is a connected operations and accounting platform built around hospitality, retail and services — point of sale, inventory, reservations, folios, payroll and double-entry accounting in one system, with each location keeping its own books. It is opinionated about how those businesses work, which is the point and also the limit.
How much you configure before it fits. A configurable ERP can be shaped into almost anything given implementation effort. Qvian assumes the shape of a hospitality or retail operation on day one, which means less to build and less to change.
Yes. There is a dedicated Odoo importer alongside general CSV migration with mapping and duplicate detection, so products, customers and suppliers come across rather than being retyped.
Qvian is built in the Maldives. GST and TGST reporting, and Green Tax calculated at checkout with exemptions applied and a MIRA information sheet as an export, are part of the product rather than a configuration exercise.
Qvian is set up rather than implemented. The realistic long pole is your data — particularly getting a menu in with its recipes and ingredient links, which is what makes food cost meaningful. That is measured in days rather than months.
Other evaluation guides
See it against your own numbers.
Bring a supplier invoice and your menu. That is the whole demonstration.