Odoo Implementation Plan in Syria 2027: 90 Days, Week by Week

An Odoo implementation plan for a Syrian SME can fit in about 90 days when the scope stays standard: eight weeks to go live, then 30 days of close follow-up. This guide lays out those 12 weeks for a typical case: a Damascus building-materials trader with an Aleppo warehouse, one legal entity, 12 people who need a login, and the Accounting, Sales, Purchase and Inventory apps, plus one showroom till. Treat it as a typical plan, not a promise. Several companies, manufacturing, payroll for a large workforce, custom code or data that arrives late will all add weeks.

Three Syrian facts shape the plan from day one:

• No Syrian localization: as of November 2026, Syria is not on Odoo's list of fiscal localizations, so your accountant adapts a generic chart of accounts and sets up taxes instead of checking a ready-made package.
• The new pound: old notes lost their legal tender status on 31 July 2026, and every old-pound figure you migrate must be divided by 100, exactly once.
• Power and internet: cuts are part of the plan, not an exception, from the training timetable to go-live day.

Then plan backwards from the go-live date. Odoo's accounting guide calls the end of the fiscal year the easiest point to switch and advises against switching in the middle of a tax period, because the figures of two systems then have to be combined. So go live on the 1st of a month, and ask your accountant which monthly declarations you file, so each one comes from a single system. Count eight weeks back from that date: that is day 1.

An example: a plan starting now, in November 2026, is too late for 1 January 2027, which needed day 1 on 6 November. The next clean date is Monday 1 February 2027, with day 1 on Monday 7 December 2026. Ramadan 2027 is expected to begin in early February and Eid al-Fitr in early March, so a shop whose peak season falls then could aim for Thursday 1 April 2027 instead, with day 1 on Thursday 4 February.

Copy these lines into a spreadsheet and split them on the | character to get four columns. Week 9 starts on go-live day, the 1st of the month.

• Week | Goal | Who | Deliverable
• 1 | Scope: users, apps, hosting, go-live date | Owner, partner | Signed one-page scope; login list
• 2 | Gaps: standard, Studio or code | Key users, partner | A decision per gap; phase-2 list
• 3 | Main currency, accounts, taxes | Accountant, owner | Signed mapping; currency policy
• 4 | Customers, suppliers, products cleaned | Key users | Files with currency and scale columns
• 5 | Opening balances, debt notebook, count plan | Accountant, key users | Open items per customer, per currency
• 6 | Configuration, test imports | Partner, key users | Configured test database; change log
• 7 | Tests, Arabic training, outage drill | Key users, partner | Signed scenarios; a one-page guide per role
• 8 | Parallel run, go/no-go | Everyone | Matching totals; written go decision
• 9 | Go-live; opening balances posted | Accountant, partner | Four checks passed; old system read-only
• 10 | Daily support; first cash and bank reconciliation | Key users, partner | Issue log, an owner per line
• 11 | Owner's reports; backups | Owner, partner | Weekly reports; a backup downloaded and checked
• 12 (to day 90) | First month-end close; review | Owner, accountant, partner | Closed month; phase-2 plan

Four roles make or break the plan:

• Owner: signs the scope and gives the final go. If the owner lives abroad, name a deputy in Syria who can decide on the spot.
• Key users: one each for accounts, sales, the warehouse and the till. They clean data, test and train colleagues, so free them about a day a week.
• Accountant, in-house or external: maps the accounts, sets the currency policy and signs the opening balances.
• Partner: runs the project, configures Odoo, prepares the imports, trains in Arabic and says plainly when a request needs code.

Weeks 1 and 2 are about saying no. Write down what Odoo must run on day one and park the rest on a phase-2 list:

• Users: list by name everyone who needs a login, including an outside accountant, who counts as a paying user on Odoo's paid plans.
• Apps: replace today's tools first. For the trader: Accounting, Sales, Purchase and Inventory, with Point of Sale for the showroom till.

Week 3 settles accounts and currency before anything is posted. With your accountant, map the old chart onto Odoo's generic one, renaming and recoding standard accounts rather than deleting them, as Odoo uses some as defaults. Odoo sets a main currency in the Accounting settings, activates others beside it and accepts rates entered by hand. Ask your accountant which currency your books must be kept in, then:

• Keep domestic price lists and invoices in new pounds. Legislative Decree No. 5 of 2024, listed as in force by the Central Bank of Syria (CBS), bans dealing in any other currency as a means of payment.
• Use dollars only where the law allows, such as imports and exports under the foreign-trade rules clarified by CBS Decision No. 112 of 2024. Ask your lawyer when in doubt.
• Take the SYP rate from the CBS official bulletin: 122.00 new pounds per US dollar (middle) on 5 November 2026.

Weeks 4 and 5 are data. Under Decree No. 293 of 2025, 100 old pounds equal 1 new pound, and a pound is 100 piastres. Add currency and scale columns to every file, then divide old-pound figures by 100 once, keeping two decimals: 3,486,250 old pounds becomes 34,862.50 new. Turn the debt notebook into open items, one row per customer per currency, and ask your largest customers to confirm their balances. Odoo warns that imports are permanent, so press Test on every file; our data migration guide for Syria covers the import order.

Configure with one rule: a standard setting first, a Studio field second, custom code last, each with a written reason. Studio has a price too: on Odoo's paid plans, installing Studio or adding a company switches the database to the Custom plan automatically.

Train in week 7, in Arabic, on your own data in a test copy. Each user picks Arabic under My profile, once the language has been added to the database. Keep sessions short, book them in the hours when power is usually on, record them, and give each role a one-page Arabic sheet of its daily tasks.

Then rehearse the cuts, so nobody improvises on go-live day:

• Till: Odoo's POS offline mode keeps taking orders during an internet outage and syncs them when the connection returns. Nobody may close or reload the browser until it has synced. Local printers keep working; connected payment terminals and new customer records do not.
• Back office: Odoo's offline mode covers short interruptions only, queuing changes to records opened while online.
• Power: UPS units on the router, the tills and any local server, and a second internet line from another provider.

Week 8 is the parallel run. Odoo's accounting guide recommends practising in a test database while still working in your old workflow. On Odoo Online, a duplicate made for testing purposes sends no emails or payments and expires after 15 days, so create it at the start of week 8. Key users enter one real week in both systems, then compare sales, cash per currency, receivables and stock. The owner then signs go or no-go.

On go-live day the old program becomes read-only and Odoo issues every new invoice. Post opening balances only after Odoo's four checks: receivables equal open invoices minus credit notes, payables equal open bills minus refunds, stock accounts equal cost times quantity, and the trial balance balances. Then follow a 30-day routine:

• Every day: a 15-minute issue review, with an owner for each line.
• Week 10: count each cash box in its own currency and reconcile the banks.
• Week 11: download a backup and keep it on storage the company controls.
• Days 28–30: the first month-end close in Odoo, checked against the old reports.

The 8 risks that delay Odoo projects in Syria, and how to avoid each:

• Growing scope: sign it in week 1; new ideas go to phase 2.
• An absent owner: a deputy in Syria with authority to decide.
• Key users with no time: free them about a day a week.
• Old pounds, new pounds and dollars in one column: currency and scale columns.
• Opening balances counted twice: clearing accounts and the four checks.
• An outage on the wrong day: UPS units, a second line and an offline drill in week 7.
• Old habits rebuilt in code: standard first, Studio second, code last.
• The wrong date: mid-month, in peak season such as Ramadan and Eid, or with no parallel run.

What drives the cost: the number of people with a login, the apps, whether Studio, a second company or an API link moves you to the Custom plan, where you host, data volume and how messy it is, custom code, on-site versus remote days, and the training and follow-up you buy. Our guide to Odoo cost in Syria explains each line.

To turn this into dated steps for your company, tell us about your setup. METCH, an official Odoo partner serving Syria, can map your scope, data and go-live date, and train your team in Arabic.