Dolibarr hidden in the back office, a dead-simple PWA up front. Your customers use your application without ever seeing the ERP, and can take all of their data with them the day they decide to. Zero lock-in.
Stack: React PWA (smartmaker) + Dolibarr + SmartAuth, isolation through entity.
The situation
SaasYourApp reconciles the two: the power of Dolibarr on the server side, a minimalist SaaS experience on the user side.
Too complex, too many menus, a learning curve that scares people away. They just want their business tool, simple and effective, on mobile.
Third parties, products, quotes, invoices, stock, accounting: it all already exists in Dolibarr. Rebuilding a business backend would be absurd.
A radically simplified PWA up front, Dolibarr behind, every customer isolated in their own entity. The best of both worlds, no compromise.
The method
From self-service sign-up all the way to a frictionless exit.
The prospect signs up with a handful of fields (company, registration number, e-mail). Behind the scenes, a new Dolibarr entity is created and their first user is attached to it. No manual intervention.
Your users reach a React application (built with smartmaker) tailored to their trade: a handful of screens, mobile gestures, zero accounting jargon. Dolibarr stays invisible, reachable only by you through the back office.
Every API call carries the user's SmartAuth token and targets their entity. Each customer's data lives in the same database, partitioned by the entity column that Dolibarr natively carries on its tables.
In six months or in two years, the customer wants the full Dolibarr? Their data is already in Dolibarr format. We export their entity to a dedicated instance: third parties, quotes, invoices, products, everything follows. They leave with their assets, you keep their trust.
Architecture
No server sprawl, no database per customer. A single shared Dolibarr, entities as the data boundary, and an API layer that never lets one customer see another one's data.
The technical choice
Dolibarr carries an entity column on nearly all of its tables. That is the isolation mechanism we use directly, without enabling the multicompany module and its interface layer.
Native isolation: every record already belongs to an entity, no custom schema needed.
Standard Dolibarr format: the data stays 100% compatible with a regular Dolibarr.
Lightweight: no multicompany layer to configure, maintain or debug.
Trivial export: extracting an entity means extracting a Dolibarr ready to live on its own.
-- one customer = one entity, same database SELECT rowid, nom, email FROM llx_societe WHERE entity = 3; -- Client B // the API never leaves the entity callDolibarrAPI( '/thirdparties', 'GET', null, $entityId // enforced scope ); // exit: we extract one entity // into a dedicated Dolibarr, as is.
Illustrative snippet. The real logic lives in the includes/ layer + SmartAuth.
The biggest obstacle to SaaS adoption is the fear of being trapped. SaasYourApp turns that around: since everything already lives in a Dolibarr, the exit door is open from day one.
The customer starts on the PWA, with nothing to install or configure.
They grow, their needs get more complex, they start mentioning Dolibarr.
We move their entity to a dedicated Dolibarr. Full continuity.
Proof by example
A field service management app, built on exactly this method.
Scheduling, field jobs, quotes, invoices, on-site signatures: a PWA designed for technicians. Behind it, a shared Dolibarr handles third parties, products and accounting, each company partitioned in its own entity.
Open the demoSelf-service sign-up
A company creates its account, its entity is born on its own.
100% mobile experience
Technicians never see a Dolibarr screen.
Data ready to export
Every customer can move to their own Dolibarr.
Real invoicing
Quotes and invoices generated by the Dolibarr engine, fully compliant.
Who it is for
You already build React PWAs backed by Dolibarr. Give them a second life as a multi-tenant SaaS, without starting over.
Offer your customers a packaged product, simple to sell and to operate, with a reversibility promise that removes the last objections.
Turn a Dolibarr business module into a standalone SaaS product, and reach customers who would never have installed an ERP.
Let's talk about your smartmaker application and how to turn it into a multi-tenant SaaS offering, with no lock-in.