Knowledgebase

This article will help you provide the general requirements needed for the implementation of Odoo Inventory Module. This list does not contain module specific requirements. Module specif requirements, are requested separately.

Odoo Inventory Module General Configuration:

1. Operations
   1. Packages
      Do you sell your products in packs (e.g. parcels, boxes). There are cases where you might be selling 1 liter water bottles individually but you want to also be able to sell them in a box of 12 water bottles. If this function is applicable to you then you might want us to activate it for you. More information about Odoo Packages can be found here.
      
   2. Batch Pickings:
      Do you have staff that delivers products to your customers by picking several orders from the warehouse and then deliver them individually to each applicable customer? Batch picking allows a single picker to handle a batch of orders, reducing the number of times he must visit the same location. Do you want to activate this function? If you are not quite sure, you can find out more information about Odoo Batch Pickings here.
   3. Warnings:
      Do you want to be able to set warning messages or block messages on inventory products? This can be useful in cases when you have a product that is expired, so you want to add this as a note on the product. When set it to a warning, it will send you a warning message before selling to remind of the alert. If you set it to a block warning, the sales person will not be able to complete the transaction. He will receive a message that this product is blocked because it is expired for example.
      
2. Shipping
   1. Email Confirmation:
      Do you want to send an automatic confirmation email when Delivery Orders are done? This will require that Odoo is configured to use your mail server.
      
   2. SMS Confirmation:
      Do you want to Send an automatic confirmation SMS Text Message when Delivery Orders are done? This will require that you buy SMS credit from Odoo. More information about Odoo SMS Confirmation credit prices can be found here.
      
   3. Delivery Methods:
      Are you delivering products to your customers? If you are this function will help compute shipping costs. For example, If the customer delivery address is in Cairo a fixed fee of EGP 10, if the delivery is in Alexandria the fixed fee can change to EGP 50. You can also set rules to change delivery cost. These rules can be according to product weight or size and so on. More information about Odoo Delivery Methods can be found here.
      
3. Products
   1. Variants:
      Do you want to set product attributes (e.g. color, size) and to manage variants, there are pros and cons of activating this feature. For more information about Odoo Variants click here.
   2. Units of Measure:
      Do you sell and purchase products in different units of measure. For more information about Odoo Units of Measure click here.
      
   3. Product Packagings:
      Do you want to manage product packagings (e.g. pack of 6 bottles, box of 10 pieces). More information about Odoo Product packagings can be found here.
      
4. Traceability
   1. Lots & Serial Numbers:
      If you are buying or manufacturing products in lots and each product has a serial number, this function might be useful to increase the efficiency of tracking. It may be useful in the event if you get a report from a customer that the product was defective and you want to know which lot it came from and when this lot was purchased or from who or when it was manufactured and who was on shift at the time. This function can also be time consuming for operation team, so you might want to read more information about it before asking to activate it. More information about Odoo Lots and Serial Numbers can be found here.
   2. Consignment:
      Sometimes, suppliers can offer you to store and sell products without having to buy those items. The products enter your stock but still belong to the owner. They don’t impact your inventory valuation. If you have cases like this, then we can activate this function for you. More information about Odoo Consignment ca be found here.
      
5. Valuation
   1. Landed Costs:
      If you are importing products, you most probably need to activate this function. It gives you the ability to add additional cost (transport, customs, ...) in the value of the product. More information about Odoo landed Costs can be found here.
      
6. Warehouse
   1. Storage Locations
      Do you track product location in your warehouse? How many warehouses do you have? More information about Odoo Warehouse Storage Locations can be found here.
   2. Multi-Step Routes
      Do you want Odoo to create inventory routes automatically? Routes help automate certain tasks so you do not have to mannualy do it. Example,
      Buy Route: when products are needed at the destination location, a request for quotation is created to fulfill the need.
      Manufacture: when products are needed in the source location, a manufacturing order is created to fulfill the need.
      More information about Odoo Multi-Step routes can be found here.
7. Advanced Scheduling
   Advance Scheduling help you plan sales, ordering, manufacturing, and delivery to customer on time without delay. It can help you define a set of rules for how long it takes to manufacture a certain product and how long it takes to order its supplies and so on. This is useful when selling a product to a customer and agreeing on a time to deliver the product. If the agreed time does not meet the schedule, you will receive a warning. Odoo will also tell you the expected time to deliver the product based on the rules it has on each process up until the product is delivered to the customer. More information about Odoo Advance Scheduling can be found here.
   Scheduling can be done for the following:
   
   1. Security Lead Time for Sales:
      Schedule deliveries earlier to avoid delays
      
   2. Security Lead Time for Purchase:
      Schedule receivings earlier to avoid delays
      
   3. Days to Purchase:
      Days needed to confirm a PO, define when a PO should be validated
      

This is to be repeated for each company being implemented in Odoo.

Odoo Inventory Warehouse Configuration:

1. Warehouse Name
   
2. Warehouse address
3. Warehouse Short name (5 letters maximum)
4. Warehouse Routes (Example below):
   Some companies have a warehouse for receiving only and another one for storage and another for shipping.
   Does this warehouse receive Purchases When bought?
   Does this warehouse receive Purchases only when physically received at the warehouse
   Does this warehouse ship sales when sold?

This is to be repeated for each company Warehouse to be added, it can be provided to the implementation team as a spread sheet.

Odoo Inventory Product Categories:
Product categories help group products with similar costing methods. Odoo supports 3 costing methods;

1. Standard Cost.
2. First in First Out (FIFO).
3. Average Cost.

Some companies use different costing methods for each product type. For example Average Cost for Raw and Packing Materials and FIFO for finished goods. Please share with us your default costing method, and if there is specific group of products that will use a different method.

Which costing method do you want to use?

Odoo can handle inventory valuation in two ways, manual and automated. If you will use manual method which is the Odoo default, you will need to calculate the inventory valuation separately for example on a spread sheet and create manual journal entries in Odoo periodically. Odoo makes your life easier by setting up automated inventory valuation so you wont have to do this manual task. Find out more information about Odoo Inventory Valuation here.

Do you want to use automated or manual inventory valuation?

Odoo Inventory Products:
Products can be added to Odoo one by one (data entry) method or by importing them. If you have your inventory in another system, you can easily export it out of that system and import it into Odoo. If you have it organized in a spread sheet, then adding Products by import also sounds as a good idea. If you are using inventory cards and everything is hard copy, you can use the data entry method by adding the products one by one in Odoo using the Products interface.

In order for Greens247 to help import your products you will need to use Odoo Product Import Template. Download the template and fill in the data and save the file. For each of the below product types, you will repeat the process and save a separate file for each. More information about using the Odoo Product Import Template can be found here.

1. Products that are purchased only, example raw materials.
2. Products that are sold only, example finished goods, or services.
3. Products that are purchased and sold, example trading goods, or raw materials that can be manufactured or traded.

Kindly provide us with a separate file for each.

Odoo Inventory Reordering Rules:
Odoo can make your life easier by automation. Odoo can monitor your inventory levels and send a quotation request to your vendors automatically when defined rules are applicable. Reordering Rules can be input manually one by one for each product or it can be imported. More information about importing data into Odoo can be found here. You can set the minimum and maximum quantity levels and the vendor for each Product and Odoo will automatically send a request for quotation to the vendor. Odoo will help you so you never run out of stock again, read more about Odoo Inventory Reordering Rules here.