Dolibarr is flexible out of the box, but the last ten percent is yours: fields, templates, branding, backups, and hardening. These ten customizations are the ones owners ask for most, and your agent can do them without a consultant’s invoice.

1. Extrafields where Dolibarr runs out of fields

The extrafields system lets you add custom columns to almost any object — third parties, products, quotes, members. The agent adds them through the setup pages or directly, with the right type and visibility. Say: “Add an extrafield Shelf location to products as a dropdown of our warehouse zones, and show it as an extra column in product lists.”

That shelf example will save your pickers real time every single day. Ask it to document each field in a change log so a future upgrade or migration does not lose them.

2. An invoice PDF that looks like your company

Dolibarr’s document templates (Crabe, Sponge, Azur) can be tuned or duplicated: move columns, change the footer, add your bank details, print your terms and conditions. Ask: “Duplicate the Sponge invoice template, put our bank details in the footer, and add a thank-you line in Vietnamese.”

The agent edits the template files and switches the default in the setup, leaving the original untouched so upgrades stay clean. Every invoice you send is a small advertisement; make it look like you meant it.

3. A login page that carries your brand

The first thing every user sees is the login screen, and the default is unmistakably generic. The agent can restyle it — your logo, your colors, a clean background — with a custom CSS override that survives upgrades. Say: “Restyle the login page with our logo and brand colors, but do not touch the core theme files.”

If customers or members log in, this one change alters how the whole product feels. It is an hour of work with an agent and years of looking right.

4. Switch on the modules you actually need

Dolibarr ships dozens of modules off by default: tickets, donations, MRP with bills of materials, batch and serial numbers, standing debit orders, multicurrency. Each needs setup — numbering, dictionary entries, permissions. Try: “Enable the ticket module and set it up: public form, one category per service line, and notifications to support@ourcompany.example.”

The agent does the checkbox-and-config dance and writes down what it changed. That write-down matters when you wonder, six months later, why something behaves a certain way.

5. A category tree that matches how you sell

Categories drive group prices, reports, mass actions, and POS filtering, so a clean tree pays off everywhere. A messy one quietly taxes every task. Ask: “Rebuild our product categories into three branches — Retail, Wholesale, Discontinued — and reassign all existing products.”

The agent writes a migration script and shows you a before-and-after count per branch. This is tedious in the admin UI and fast in SQL, which is the right kind of job to delegate.

6. Email templates that sound like you

Dolibarr’s default emails are functional but bland, and customers notice tone. The agent creates templates per event — quote sent, invoice reminder, member welcome — using substitution variables and your voice. Ask: “Create a reminder template for overdue invoices that is firm but friendly, with the invoice total and due date filled in automatically.”

Templates live in the admin and stay editable, so you can still tweak an individual send. Over time, every outgoing mail sounds like the same person wrote it — because effectively one did.

7. Backups that actually run and restore

A backup you have not restored is a hope, not a plan. The agent sets up a mysqldump plus a tar of the documents directory on a schedule, keeps 30 days of history, and — the part everyone skips — tests a restore into a scratch database. Say: “Set up nightly backups of the database and documents folder with 30-day retention, and show me a successful test restore.”

Ask for a monthly restore test on cron. That is the difference between a bad afternoon and a closed business. If you can, have it copy the backups off the server too — a backup on the same disk as the data is little comfort in a real disaster.

8. Harden the installation

Default installs carry defaults: the install wizard may still be reachable, self-registration may be open, HTTPS may be half-done. The agent audits and fixes — locks the install and upgrade pages, forces HTTPS, disables public sign-ups if you do not need them, and reviews password policy. Say: “Audit the security of this Dolibarr install and fix what you find: lock the installer, force HTTPS, disable public sign-ups.”

It should also check file permissions on conf.php and the documents directory, where secrets and uploaded files live. Security work is mostly a long checklist, and checklists are what agents are for.

9. Numbering masks that look professional

References like FA2604-0001 beat the defaults every time, and customers do notice. The agent sets clean numbering models for quotes, invoices, orders, and supplier documents, with the masks you want per document type. Ask: “Set invoice references to INV-{yy}{mm}-#### starting at 1000, and quotes to QUO-{yy}-####, and make new drafts use them immediately.”

Honest note: test the new mask on a draft document before it goes anywhere near live accounting. Renumbering history is a headache you do not want.

10. A dashboard that answers your first question

Dolibarr’s home page is configurable, and the default layout is rarely the one you would choose. The agent sets the widgets you actually check — unpaid invoice total, stock alerts, the open quote pipeline, today’s tickets — and removes the rest. Say: “Set up my dashboard to show unpaid invoice total, products under stock alert, my open tasks, and tickets opened today.”

Managers and salespeople can each get their own layout. You stop hunting for the number you check first every morning, because it is already there.

Customizations pile up over time, so ask the agent to keep a running change log — a short markdown file on the server listing every tweak and why it was made. Future you will be grateful.

Ready when you are: Dolibarr on OpenSysLab.