Frequently asked questions
Straight answers on how Odello reads orders, what it does after the order, your systems and data, e-invoicing, pricing and support.
Getting started
Do my customers need to download an app or change how they order?
No. Your customers keep ordering the way they already do — WhatsApp messages, voice notes, photos of handwritten orders, emails and PO PDFs. Odello reads what arrives. The change happens on your side of the conversation, not theirs.
Do I keep my existing WhatsApp number?
Yes. Odello connects to the WhatsApp line your customers already know, and you keep full access to it throughout.
What do you need from me to get started?
Four things, in whatever format you have them: your customer list, your product list, your price list, and roughly the last three months of orders so the system has history to learn from. Any format, any state — we do the cleaning.
How long does it take to go live?
Weeks, not months. The system runs in three stages: a learning period where it sits in your chats and reads without replying, a trial period where it places orders but its replies are held back for you to check, and then live. You decide when to move between stages. Where there is no ERP integration to build, the fastest we have gone live is a day; the slowest part of any project is usually the state of the client's own data.
Is there any on-site implementation?
No. Setup, configuration and training all happen remotely, and training is built into the system itself — your staff can ask it how to do something and get the steps.
How the AI works
How does it know what my customer means when they write "the usual" or just a few numbers?
Three inputs: that customer's order history, every conversation you have had with them, and any instructions you have written about them. Each customer gets a written memory that rebuilds every night. One customer of ours orders with three bare numbers and no product names; the system resolves it correctly every time from history and sequence.
Different customers call the same product different things. Do I have to standardise them?
No. The memory is per customer, so "Beijing cabbage" from one and a different name from another both resolve to the right product. You do not have to change how anyone speaks.
What happens when it is not sure?
It asks a person. If a customer's price does not match yours, or an item cannot be identified, or an instruction is ambiguous, the conversation is handed to your team with the discrepancy written out. You resolve it, and you can tell the system in the same message how to handle it next time — for that customer, or for everyone. Once answered, it does not ask again.
Can it confirm stock you do not have, or invent an order?
No. The guardrails prevent the failures people worry about: it cannot confirm stock that does not exist, and there are only two outcomes for an incoming order — it is placed, or it is flagged as a problem for a person. Nothing falls silently between the two.
How fast does it reply?
Around ten seconds. Where it looks slower, it is waiting because the customer is still typing, so that it confirms one complete order rather than five fragments.
A customer adds to the same order across the morning. Is that five orders or one?
One. It keeps updating the same order until the warehouse has started on it. After that point the AI can no longer amend it, and a change request goes to a person instead.
Which languages does it handle?
Any language your customers write in, including everyday shorthand and slang. Some dialects are handled less reliably than others; where the system does not understand something cleanly, it says what it did understand and passes the rest to a person rather than guessing.
Does it take phone calls?
No. Voice notes yes, live calls no.
What it does after the order
Does it produce the invoice and the picking list?
Yes. The confirmed order becomes an invoice for that customer and a picking list on the warehouse app, showing what to pack and for whom. Where products carry batch and expiry dates, picking draws the earliest expiry first.
How does it answer "where is my delivery"?
From the driver's own delivery record. Your driver photographs the drop-off; when a customer asks, the system answers from that photo and the delivery status without anyone calling the driver. The estimated arrival time is calculated from the driver's sequence, map routing and a buffer you set.
Does it route my drivers?
It allocates, it does not route. Orders self-assign to delivery zones you draw on a map, and jobs go to drivers by zone. The driver reorders his own stops in the app, because a driver's own sequencing is better than ours.
Can it tell me who has not paid?
Yes. Payment records and statements of account per customer, so late payers are visible without anyone building the list by hand. Credit limits and overdue balances are checked at the moment an order comes in, so a customer over their limit is flagged before goods leave.
Can it handle products sold by weight where no two pieces are the same?
Yes. A product can be listed per piece with an average weight, and the system reconciles the two, so your customer keeps saying "6 kg" and your books still balance.
Your systems and your data
Do you replace my accounting system?
No, and we would rather say that plainly. Odello is not an accounting system: it does not carry a general ledger, accounts payable or bank reconciliation. It runs the commercial side — enquiries, quotations, orders, pricing, inventory, purchasing, delivery and invoicing — and writes the results into the accounting system you already run. Your ledger and your statutory reporting stay where your accountant expects to find them.
Which systems does it connect to?
It is ERP-agnostic and integrates by API with SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage, Odoo, Xero and others. Xero connects natively in one click from inside the product. Data flows one way — from Odello into your accounting system — so nothing on your side is overwritten.
What if my system is not on that list?
We tell you before you sign, not after. If we have not integrated with your system before, we scope it properly with you first, and we do not commit to integrations we have not tested. Where a system has no usable API, orders and records can still be exported and handed across.
I run more than one company. Can I manage both?
Yes. Each entity holds its own register and tax ID. You switch between them inside the dashboard without logging in again — the closest familiar comparison is how Xero handles multiple entities. You view one entity at a time; transactions between your own companies do not need re-keying.
How long do you keep my data?
For as long as you are a customer, with no limit. There is no rolling window and nothing is archived or deleted after twelve or twenty-four months. It does not slow down as the years accumulate.
Where is my data held, and is it used to train anything?
On Google Cloud in Singapore, with two further backups. Your data is isolated per account, encrypted, and never used to train any model. We operate as a PDPA data intermediary and are working towards ISO/IEC 27001.
Can I take my data with me if I leave?
Yes. Export it and go. There is no lock-in and no termination fee.
Can a member of staff misuse it?
Permissions separate what each role can see, change and delete. A salesperson's app reaches only that person's own customers and cannot export customer data. Beyond that, the system keeps a full audit trail, and you can ask it directly who is pricing below cost or placing and cancelling orders erratically.
Can I ask questions of my own data?
Yes. The system connects to Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini, so your team can ask in plain language — what a customer last ordered and at what price, last year's monthly averages for a product, or whether three complaints about a driver trace to the same route. That connection uses your own subscription to the AI tool; we are not reselling it.
e-Invoicing and compliance
Are you InvoiceNow ready?
We are registered in the Peppol directory, and InvoiceNow support is coming next year — well ahead of the 2030 requirement. It will be included in the subscription with no per-transaction fee.
Are you compliant with LHDN e-invoicing in Malaysia?
Compliance stays where it already lives. Odello is not what issues your invoice — your accounting system is, and whatever MyInvois compliance it provides today is unchanged by us. We sit on top of it and do not disturb it.
Pricing
How is it priced?
By the number of orders the AI handles each month, not by the number of users. Every tier includes the full platform; the only thing that changes between tiers is the order volume. There is a one-time implementation fee that depends on the scope — how much data has to be loaded and how many systems have to be connected — and we fix it with you before anything is signed.
Why not per user?
Because per-user pricing pushes operators into sharing one login, which destroys the record of who did what. Every packer, driver and salesperson gets their own account at no extra cost, because the audit trail is what makes the rest work.
What if I have a busy month?
Tiers are assessed on a three-month rolling average, so a festive spike does not reprice you.
Can I pay less if I do not use some of the features?
No — and we would rather be straight about that than build a menu. Everything is one price, which means anything you are not using today is there at no extra cost when you are ready for it.
Is there a grant?
Singapore-registered companies may be eligible for the Enterprise Development Grant, which can cover up to 50% of qualifying costs. We prepare the application and you review and submit it. We treat it as a way of reducing a cost you have already decided is worth paying, not as the reason to pay it.
Is there a minimum contract or a lock-in?
No. Stop whenever you like, and take your data with you.
Support
What support do I get?
A dedicated group chat with the founders and the technical team, not a ticket queue. Standard support Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm Singapore time, with critical issues reaching engineering at any hour.
Do you do HR, payroll or accounting?
No, and we are not planning to. We do the order desk and the operations behind it, and we connect to the systems that do the rest.