Modules / Applications

Dolibarr is a toolbox where you only open the drawers you need. A disabled function appears nowhere, neither in the menus nor in the screens. That is why two Dolibarr installations look so unlike each other.

It happens in Setup, then Modules/Applications.

1. The switch enables or disables the module. The top menu changes immediately.
2. The cog opens the settings specific to that module. It only appears once the module is enabled, and that is where the next chapter takes place.
3. The search box filters the list, handy to find one module among the eighty available.

What to enable

The functions that cover the everyday needs of a small business:

• Third parties: your customers, prospects and vendors. Essential, everything starts there.
• Products and Services: what you sell, depending on whether you sell one, the other or both.
• Commercial proposals: quotations.
• Orders: useful if you work on order, pointless if you invoice directly.
• Invoices: customer invoicing and payment tracking.
• Banks and cash: to record incoming payments and reconcile your statements.

Only enable what you use

The temptation is to enable many modules "just in case". It is a bad idea for two reasons.

First, readability: each module adds menus, tabs, columns and options, and the screen quickly fills up with functions you never use.

Then, speed: an enabled module works permanently, even when you do not use it. It adds its menu entries to build, its checks on every save and its queries on every display. An installation with everything enabled answers noticeably more slowly than one tuned to actual needs.

So enable what you need today. Nothing is lost: enabling a module later destroys no data, and disabling one does not delete what it held either, it hides it.

The cog, remember it for what follows

Next to the name of each enabled module sits a cog. It opens the settings belonging to that module: document numbering, PDF templates, behaviour options.

That is where the next chapter takes place. Remember this path, it is not in the Setup menu but here, in the module list.