Contents9
- 01What does the flow look like?
- 02Odoo alone, or Twenty and Dolibarr connected?
- 03Step 1: the quote is born from the deal
- 04Step 2: the customer signs online
- 05Step 3: the invoice goes out on signature
- 06Step 4: the payment comes back to the CRM
- 07What the flow does not do
- 08How much does this flow cost?
- 09Frequently asked questions
A signed deal is often entered three times. The salesperson notes it in the CRM, copies it into the quote template, then accounting retypes it into the invoice. Each copy is a chance for error: a price from before the discount, an outdated address, an invoice that goes out late because nobody knew the quote had been signed.
This guide describes the flow that removes those copies, from the deal in the CRM to the payment received, with the open source tools in our range: Twenty for customer relationships, Dolibarr or Odoo for quotes and invoices, n8n in between, and an electronic signature hosted on your own infrastructure. This is what we set up; here is how it works and where it stops.
In short
A deal is entered only once, in the CRM; the quote, the invoice and the payment status follow from it.
Odoo runs the whole flow in a single tool; with Twenty and Dolibarr, n8n carries the information from one to the other.
An electronic signature is admissible in court, but only a qualified signature enjoys a presumption of reliability.
Off-grid discounts and binding decisions stay with a person.
What does the flow look like?
From signed quote to paid invoice
- The deal
It matures in the CRM, with the customer and the negotiated terms.
- The quote
It is created in the invoicing tool, from the record, without retyping.
- The signature
The customer signs online, and the signed document joins the file.
- The invoice
It goes out on signature, along with a payment link.
- The payment
It is recorded, and the deal moves to “paid” in the CRM.
Each piece of information is written in a single tool, and the others read it. The CRM is the reference for the customer and the deal, the invoicing tool for prices, quotes and invoices. That is the rule we apply to any shared data, and the position of our guide Automation without AI: when a rule is enough: no step in this flow needs an AI model.
Odoo alone, or Twenty and Dolibarr connected?
Two setups can carry this flow, and the choice mostly depends on what you already have.
Twenty and Dolibarr, connected by n8n
A CRM with a flexible data model, shaped to your vocabulary
Quotes, invoices and payments in Dolibarr
n8n carries the deal, the quote and the statuses
A separately hosted signature for binding documents
Odoo alone
CRM, quotes, signature and payment in the same tool
The customer signs and pays from their portal
No synchronisation to monitor
A full ERP that the whole team must adopt
In Odoo, the flow exists out of the box. According to its documentation, a customer who opens their quote in the portal finds a button to sign and pay; another button, “Accept & Pay”, confirms the order with an online payment. With Twenty and Dolibarr, each tool keeps its role, and n8n carries the information from one to the other through their APIs. Our comparison Twenty, Dolibarr or Odoo: which one for your team? helps you choose based on size and processes.
Step 1: the quote is born from the deal
When the deal reaches the “quote” stage in Twenty, n8n creates the commercial proposal in Dolibarr: the customer, created if they do not exist yet, with their company registration number, the lines and the negotiated terms. Prices come from the Dolibarr catalogue, never from a field typed by hand in the CRM.
The Dolibarr API, described in its demo explorer, exposes proposals, orders and invoices, with the actions the flow needs: validate a proposal, close it, mark it invoiced, record a payment. A discount outside your price grid does not slip through silently: the flow prepares the quote, and an authorised person approves it with one click from their messaging app before it goes out.
Step 2: the customer signs online
Three routes exist, and they are not equal in legal terms.
Dolibarr’s online signature is convenient, and the vendor itself states its limit. The text accompanying the option in its language files warns that it lets a person insert the image of their signature in the PDF, and that “such a signature can be made by anyone and does not have the same legal value as a legal electronic signature system going through an authorized trusted third party”. It is fine for an approval, not for a binding contract.
Odoo’s signature happens in the customer portal, in the same step as the payment.
An open source signature tool, hosted on your own infrastructure: Docuseal or Documenso. Both install on your server and are released under the AGPL licence, with two nuances: Docuseal asks you to keep its attribution in the interface, and Documenso reserves its advanced features for a commercial licence. Before choosing, check the level of signature the tool produces and the evidence it keeps: the signer’s identity, timestamp, document integrity.
What is an electronic signature worth?
European law sets out the principle in the eIDAS Regulation, still in force after its 2024 revision:
An electronic signature shall not be denied legal effect and admissibility as evidence in legal proceedings solely on the grounds that it is in an electronic form or that it does not meet the requirements for qualified electronic signatures.
The same article gives a qualified signature the effect of a handwritten one. In France, the Civil Code grants electronic documents the same weight as paper, provided their author is identified and their integrity guaranteed. The reliability of the process is only presumed, under the decree of 28 September 2017, for a qualified signature.
In practice: an ordinary electronic signature is admissible, but if it is challenged, it is up to you to prove its reliability, hence the importance of the evidence kept. For your most binding contracts, a qualified signature, issued by a qualified trust service provider, reverses that burden. Have the level you choose validated by your legal adviser.
Step 3: the invoice goes out on signature
The signed quote becomes an order, then an invoice, without anyone retyping it. In Dolibarr, the validated invoice goes out with a payment link: the Stripe and PayPal modules ship with the software, and an online payment is recorded on the invoice automatically. In Odoo, the payment comes with the quote signature.
A deadline is approaching for French businesses: from their issuing date, 2026 or 2027 depending on their size, an invoice between French companies will have to go through an approved platform rather than a simple email. The flow must take this into account from the design stage; our guide E-invoicing: what your software must do details the timeline and what Dolibarr and Odoo offer.
Step 4: the payment comes back to the CRM
The salesperson should know their customer has paid without asking accounting. n8n regularly re-reads the status of invoices in Dolibarr, and moves the deal to “paid” in Twenty. We prefer this scheduled check, which reads the actual state of invoices, to a trigger that can get lost along the way.
An invoice still unpaid after its due date triggers the reminder, without waiting for someone to notice: it is one of the flows in our article on the ten automations to look at first.
From the field
Twenty, n8n, Docuseal and Documenso run on our own server, among a dozen services. This is the foundation we assemble for a business: its CRM, its quoting and invoicing tool, and a signature hosted on its infrastructure or ours. The full flow, from quote to payment, is what we set up; we do not claim any particular track record with Dolibarr and Odoo, whose scope and price we present.
What the flow does not do
It does not negotiate. An off-grid discount, a payment schedule, a special condition: a person grants them, and the flow then applies them without copying them.
It does not keep the books. Invoices from Dolibarr or Odoo feed your accountant; the flow removes the retyping, not their work.
It does not monitor itself. A synchronisation that stops without an alert leaves deals without quotes or payments invisible. Our guide Monitoring your n8n workflows: no silent failures explains how to be alerted.
Watch out
On Odoo Online, access to the external API is reserved for “Custom” plans: it does not exist on the One App Free and Standard plans, according to Odoo’s documentation. If your CRM needs to talk to Odoo, check this before choosing your plan. New integrations go through the JSON-2 API introduced with Odoo 19: the older interfaces are deprecated, and their removal is announced for winter 2027 on Odoo Online and autumn 2028 on installed versions.
How much does this flow cost?
It is made of two building blocks. Our n8n automation offer puts an end-to-end process into production from €2,400, with alerts and a history of every run; monitoring and fixes are optional, at €350 per month. If the quoting and invoicing tool is missing, our custom CRM and ERP offer installs it: Twenty at €4,500, Dolibarr from €6,500, Odoo from €15,000 with the START tier, which covers CRM, invoicing and projects.
Key takeaway
- A deal is entered once, in the CRM; everything else follows from it.
- Prices come from the invoicing tool, never from a free field in the CRM.
- Dolibarr’s built-in signature inserts an image: for a binding contract, choose a real electronic signature.
- In France, the flow must plan for e-invoicing before your issuing date.
Frequently asked questions
Does an electronic signature have the same value as a handwritten one?
Under the eIDAS Regulation, only a qualified electronic signature has the effect of a handwritten signature. The others remain admissible in court: their effect cannot be denied solely because they are electronic. If challenged, it is up to you to prove the reliability of the process, hence the importance of keeping the signer’s identity, the timestamp and proof that the document has not changed.
Should you choose Odoo to have everything in one tool?
Not necessarily. Odoo runs the flow out of the box, but it is a full ERP, which the whole team has to adopt and which is priced accordingly. If your sales team is already attached to its CRM, or if Dolibarr covers your quotes and invoices, connecting the tools through n8n costs less than a migration. The right setup depends on what you already have and on your size.
Can we keep our current invoicing software?
Yes, if it exposes an API that lets you create a quote, read an invoice’s status and record a payment. n8n then plugs into it just as it does with Dolibarr. If you invoice in France, also check that it is connected to an approved e-invoicing platform: if it is not and its vendor announces nothing specific, changing tools becomes a question of timing.
What happens when the customer pays by bank transfer?
The payment does not come through the link: it has to be matched to the invoice. Dolibarr and Odoo both offer bank reconciliation, which accounting ticks off or the flow prepares. In both cases, as soon as the invoice is marked paid, the status goes back to the CRM, and reminders only go out for invoices that are actually unpaid.
Sources
- Odoo documentation, online signature to confirm orders (new tab)odoo.com
- Odoo documentation, online payment to confirm orders (new tab)odoo.com
- Dolibarr, REST API explorer, demo instance (new tab)preview.dolibarr.org
- Dolibarr, administration language file, branch 24.0 (new tab)github.com
- Docuseal, official repository (new tab)github.com
- Documenso, official repository (new tab)github.com
- Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (eIDAS), consolidated version of 18 October 2024 (new tab)eur-lex.europa.eu
- French Decree No. 2017-1416 of 28 September 2017 on electronic signatures, Article 1 (new tab)legifrance.gouv.fr
- Dolibarr wiki, Stripe module (new tab)wiki.dolibarr.org
- Odoo documentation, external API (new tab)odoo.com
- Odoo documentation 20.0, external API (new tab)odoo.com
Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (eIDAS), consolidated version of 18 October 2024
Read on eur-lex.europa.eu(new tab)French Decree No. 2017-1416 of 28 September 2017 on electronic signatures, Article 1
Read on legifrance.gouv.fr(new tab)Jim · founder of Brain Plus AI
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