Executive Summary
A.J. Wilson Wholesale Food Distributors, a leading Australian food wholesaler, faced significant operational bottlenecks due to an antiquated and fragmented software stack. Struggling with manual data entry, difficult data extraction, and disconnected ordering systems, the 37-year-old family-owned business partnered with WAO Group to implement a comprehensive Odoo ERP solution. This digital transformation will unify their sales, inventory, and financial operations to support their continued growth and improve business insights.
About the Client
Industry: Food Wholesale Distribution (B2B)
Location: Forster, NSW, Australia
Scale: Serving hundreds of B2B customers with a catalogue of over 1,400 SKUs.
For over 30 years, A.J. Wilson has provided exceptional service to hospitality businesses—including clubs, pubs, and restaurants—across the Great Lakes and Manning Valley regions. Their complex infrastructure includes a fleet of delivery trucks on established regional routes and a large warehouse managing frozen, chilled, and dried goods.
The Challenge: Fragmented Systems and Manual Processes
A.J. Wilson's growth and daily operations were hindered by highly manual workflows and a lack of system integration. Key challenges included:
Disconnected Tech Stack:
The business was using "clunky" legacy systems and transitioning to a new third-party online ordering portal, suffering from a complete lack of integration between their ordering platforms and invoicing systems.
Manual Order Processing:
Pick slips were being written manually on clipboards by warehouse staff before being manually translated into invoices.
Inventory Blind Spots:
Managing extensive SKUs across multiple temperature zones caused stock allocation headaches. They struggled with massive, complex full stocktakes and needed better visibility over what stock was physically "on hand" versus "free to stock" due to future allocations.
Complex Pricing Needs:
The business required a robust system to handle tiered pricing structures, custom quotations for large corporate customers, and strict industry compliance programs.
The Solution: A Unified Odoo ERP Architecture
A.J. Wilson turned to WAO Group, an experienced Odoo partner, to guide their digital transformation via the Odoo Success Blueprint (OSB). Following a detailed discovery and scoping phase, the business selected a powerful suite of core modules for their Stage One rollout, including Accounting, Inventory, Purchase, Quality, Sales, Contacts, CRM, POS, and Employees.
Key functionalities implemented to revolutionize their operations include:
Automated Warehouse Workflows:
Replacing clipboards with automated bulk pick-slip printing and multi-step delivery tracking (Pick → Pack → Wrap), complete with mandatory quality checkpoints.
Smarter Inventory Control:
Transitioning from disruptive full stocktakes to routine cycle counts based on product category and location. Odoo's advanced traceability also enables comprehensive lot, serial, and expiration date tracking for perishable food items.
Unified Ordering and B2B Portals:
Integrating online customer portals directly into the ERP to seamlessly capture the majority of orders that come through digital channels.
Centralised Financials & Reporting:
Moving from siloed accounting software to Odoo Accounting to track batch payments, manage cost margins, and instantly generate live business dashboards.
Streamlined Logistics:
Upgrading to electronic proof of delivery with capabilities for customer signatures and point-of-delivery photo evidence.
Free Assessment
Not sure if you're ERP-ready?
Take our free 5-minute ERP Readiness Scorecard — built by Australia's only accounting-led Odoo partner.
Take the free scorecard →
Live on Odoo 19
To de-risk the migration, WAO Group and A.J. Wilson worked through a structured project timeline of dedicated module sprints. After system setup, internal testing and User Acceptance Testing, the teams coordinated a single planned go-live. A.J. Wilson is now running on Odoo 19.
The results, three months on
A.J. Wilson went live on 1 June 2026. The original target was 1 May; the month’s delay came from elsewhere in the business, not from either vendor. Three months on, Belinda Wilson says the team has adopted the system “really, really well” — and the change she noticed first was not a feature.
" It’s that one single source of truth that is telling us a better picture every single day. That’s probably one of the major things that we’ve noticed straight away. We didn’t even have to wait for months. Day two. "
Their previous system had taken around six months to reach a comparable point, and even then, in her words, “none of us kind of got all the right information out of it”.
Stock the sales team can actually sell
Across a catalogue of more than 1,400 SKUs, a couple of hundred suppliers and three temperature zones, the gap between stock on hand and stock free to sell is the gap between a confirmed order and an apology. Lot, expiry and first-expired-first-out handling now carry that distinction all the way into the quote.
"The expiry dates that we have, the counts that we have, the accurate data that we have is amazing. We can’t oversell something that doesn’t exist. We can’t sell something that we have 30 of when we only have two of. "
One button instead of a clipboard
Most of A.J. Wilson’s customers order online, and those orders now land directly in Odoo. Warehouse staff select the delivery runs going out that day and print the picking documents for all of them at once — replacing pick slips that were previously handwritten on clipboards and then retyped as invoices.
"We press one button. Pick slips are printed out. We didn’t have that before. "
Sales representatives on the road see the same live picture as the office — what has just been sold, and what is on hand now.
We’ve stopped phone calls. We’re more efficient out on the road. We’re seeing more customers. We’re making more sales.
Belinda does not put a number on that last point, and neither will we.
The finance function, from decipherable to unnecessary
Before the rebuild, A.J. Wilson ran its legacy system alongside Xero and the two did not speak to each other. There was no single source of truth, and the reconciliation between them landed on the owner at BAS time and at year end — along with the accounting fees that went with it.
“ I couldn’t even tell you the last time I went into Xero. ”
The reporting that replaced it is the part she describes as the step change:
“ One little screen that you can get so much information out of — we never had that. We had to go into certainly three or four different other screens to get that information out. That for us has been next level. ”
About two days a week — hers
Asked what the business had put back in its pocket, Belinda’s answer was about her own week.
“ Probably two days a week, to be honest. ”
That figure is her personal time, not a company-wide saving, and it is her estimate rather than a measured one. It is worth stating plainly on both counts — it is the owner’s week, freed up three months after go-live.
There is a second, narrower example. Running a promotion or a price change used to cost a day of a salesperson’s time: one of the sales team would come off the road and spend the day in the office doing it. That work is now a task inside the system.
Two go-lives at once, delivered remotely
A.J. Wilson was not only replacing an ERP. A new third-party online ordering platform was going live at the same time, and the two had to land together — a staggered cutover would have meant customers ordering into a system that could not yet fulfil.
“ We either had to go live with both of everything at once, or customer change would create lost opportunities, lost sales. From two different companies, and third including ourselves, the amount of working together gelled very, very well. It was amazing how well everybody worked together and how on time. ”
The other thing worth saying about this project is how it was run. Discovery, configuration, data migration, user acceptance testing, training and go-live were all delivered remotely. A warehouse-heavy food distribution business across ambient, chilled and frozen zones went live on Odoo without the client having met the WAO team in person.
That is a choice rather than a policy. WAO’s solutions architects travel to client sites regularly, particularly into manufacturing and warehousing, because watching a process for a day teaches you more than a fortnight of workshops. What it means is that a distributor in a regional town can choose a partner for industry fit rather than for proximity.
What was not customised
Asked directly how much of Odoo had been customised for them, Belinda’s answer was “a little bit — not much, though”. The main exception was customer pricing tiers, and she is candid that it is probably not the best long-term answer. That matches the position WAO takes with every client: do not customise unless it will make money or save money.
Having traded their disconnected legacy tools for a unified Odoo ecosystem, A.J. Wilson Wholesale Food Distributors now has the real-time business insights, efficiency and scalability to keep serving their local community for decades to come.
Running a wholesale or foodservice business on systems that no longer keep up? We can tell you honestly whether Odoo is the right answer for you.
Work With Us
Thinking about a similar implementation?
Our team of accounting and Odoo specialists can help you achieve similar results for your business.
Book a free consultation →The information and tips shared on this blog are meant to be used as learning and personal development tools as you launch, run and grow your business. While a good place to start, these articles should not take the place of personalised advice from professionals. As our lawyers would say: “All content on WAO’s blog is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice.” Additionally, WAO is the legal copyright holder of all materials on the blog, and others cannot re-use or publish it without our written consent.
