Odoo vs NexWave: Which ERP Fits a Growing New Zealand Business?

As a business grows, the gaps between accounts, orders, purchasing and stock become harder to manage. Staff spend more time checking spreadsheets, moving information between systems and following up work that should already be complete.

The right ERP brings that work together. The right team helps it fit your business.

For New Zealand owners comparing Odoo and NexWave, three reasons put NexWave high on the shortlist: experience with NZ businesses, the ability to customise the system, and no monthly code maintenance fees.

Odoo offers a broad set of business applications and can also be customised. The difference becomes clearer when you look at how your requirements will be delivered and what you will pay to keep using the result.

This comparison covers NexWave’s full ERP editions and Odoo’s commercial Standard and Custom plans. Information was checked on 24 October 2026.

NZ experience that shows up in daily work

Choosing an ERP involves more than choosing software. You are choosing the people who will help connect your finance, purchasing, stock and sales processes.

NexWave brings experience gained from working with New Zealand businesses. Its local focus shows up in practical features:

• GST-inclusive and GST-exclusive pricing, with company defaults and a choice on individual transactions.
• Akahu bank feeds, which bring bank transactions into NexWave for reconciliation.
• Supplier payment runs, which connect supplier invoices, payment records, supported bank files and remittance advice.

Consider a supplier payment run. The finance team selects the invoices, creates the payment records, generates the supported bank file and sends remittance advice. After the file is uploaded through internet banking and the payment is processed, the withdrawal can be reconciled in NexWave.

For the owner, the benefit is a connected record of what was selected, paid and communicated to suppliers. The team can trace a payment without rebuilding the story from separate lists.

Odoo also has NZ accounting features and New Zealand partners. NexWave’s appeal is the combination of local operating experience, connected business processes and a team that can adapt the solution as your requirements develop.

Customise the system around the work that matters

Every business has processes worth keeping. A customer may need extra information on an order. A warehouse may need a particular release check. Management may need a report that brings the right figures together.

Those requirements should be part of the ERP discussion from the start. Leaving them in spreadsheets keeps the extra checking and data entry in place.

NexWave supports custom fields, custom reports and role permissions. That is only the starting point.

NexWave can also be customised at code level. The team develops custom screens, business rules and integrations around the way a business operates. Past customer projects have included:

• Custom capacity planners that show production workloads and machine capacity, so managers can see where work will fit.
• Field service maps that show job locations, giving dispatchers a clearer view when planning visits and assigning work.
• Job schedulers that let teams view and move work across dates and workstations as priorities change.
• Configurators built around a customer’s product options and ordering process, to help staff capture what the customer needs.
• Custom integrations that exchange orders and other business data with customer systems, to reduce duplicate data entry.

This gives owners a practical way to keep planning, sales and service work connected to the rest of the business. The NexWave team can agree the scope and cost of a custom project around your requirements.

Odoo also supports customisation. Studio is included in its paid Custom plan, alongside external API access. Odoo Online supports Studio changes and certain importable data modules. Custom modules containing Python files need another hosting option, such as Odoo.sh or self-hosting. Odoo documents that restriction here.

For an owner, the important point is how easily the provider can deliver your required process and what that choice adds to the running cost.

Customisation without a monthly code maintenance fee

NexWave does not charge a monthly fee to maintain custom code.

Development and future changes are handled through agreed work and change requests. If you need a new feature or want an existing process changed, the work is assessed and priced. There is no separate monthly code maintenance fee simply because your NexWave system has been customised.

That is a clear advantage for a business that needs software to fit its operations. You can make useful changes without adding a recurring code maintenance charge to the cost of using them.

Odoo’s approach is different. Its Enterprise Subscription Agreement, section 5.1, includes monthly maintenance charges for covered custom modules, calculated per 100 lines of code at an agreed rate. The charge applies to modules covered by that maintenance arrangement, rather than every field change.

Odoo’s subscription pricing also lists implementation, Odoo.sh hosting and maintenance of custom code as separate from the subscription.

New development and maintaining existing custom code are different costs. NexWave handles new requirements through change requests and has no monthly code maintenance charge. For businesses expecting to adapt their ERP over time, this is a strong reason to choose NexWave.

Odoo vs NexWave at a glance

See NexWave pricing and Odoo pricing for current plans. Odoo’s reporting documentation also explains its built-in custom report options.

Why put NexWave first?

For a NZ business that needs a tailored ERP, NexWave combines three useful advantages: local operating experience, flexibility and no monthly code maintenance fee.

Its wholesale and distribution, manufacturing and field service editions connect work that often sits across separate systems. The team can then work with you on the changes that matter to your business.

Odoo can be a good fit when its standard applications meet your needs or you have a suitable implementation partner. When local experience and the cost of keeping a customised system are priorities, NexWave offers a clear reason to put it first.

Compare the complete proposal, including the subscription, implementation, hosting, support and future changes. No monthly code maintenance fee is a specific NexWave advantage; the full proposal shows the overall cost for your business.

See what NexWave can do for your business

Bring one process your current system makes difficult: buying imported stock, releasing an order, tracking production costs or billing extra service work.

The NexWave team can show how the platform handles it, identify any changes needed and explain the cost of getting it into use.

Book a NexWave demonstration and see how local experience and a flexible ERP can help your business move forward.