Frequently Asked Questions

Simply put, Odoo is like LEGO bricks for business management. It breaks a company's departments (sales, inventory, purchasing, accounting, HR, e-commerce) into independent applications.

• No need to buy everything at once: this is Odoo's greatest strength. If your current pain point is just "messy customer data" or "inaccurate stock counts", start by enabling only the CRM or Inventory module.
• Painless expansion, connected data: when the company grows and hires a dedicated accountant, simply install the Accounting module. Newly installed modules automatically link with your existing inventory and sales data — you never go through the pain of "switching systems".

Traditional ERPs (like SAP or Oracle) did cost millions and usually needed an entire IT department to maintain — far out of reach for small companies. Odoo's design breaks that deadlock:

• Flexible pricing and the cloud: Odoo offers cloud hosting (Odoo Online). Small companies don't buy servers — you pay per user and per edition, affordable even for a studio of a few people.
• Kill "Excel hell" and "LINE-group workflows": the most common small-company problem is fragmented information — the boss reads Excel, sales lives in LINE, the warehouse uses a whiteboard. Odoo brings everything into one place, giving small companies standardized processes from day one and a skeleton ready to scale fast.

Essentially it is "free open source" versus "paid commercial":

• Community: completely free and open source. It covers Odoo's core basics (basic sales, purchasing, inventory management). The downsides: no complete accounting entries built in, no mobile app support, and a simpler interface — suited to technically capable, low-budget teams who maintain things themselves.
• Enterprise: requires a license fee. It unlocks the full feature set, including full accounting, workflow automation, Odoo Studio (visual interface customization), barcode scanning, plus official upgrades and technical support. Most businesses choose Enterprise for stability and long-term growth.

Yes — through localization modules.

Odoo's core is a globally shared foundation, but it has official local partners in every country. For Taiwan's tax environment, local partners have developed mature Taiwan invoice and tax modules. With these localization packages configured during implementation, Odoo smoothly issues ROC duplicate/triplicate e-invoices and allowance notes, and generates media filing files (forms 401/403) — no compatibility worries at all.

The most visible change: data no longer needs re-typing — the system runs the errands for you.

• For employees (no more repeated data entry): in the past, closing a deal meant hand-writing a delivery note for the warehouse, emailing purchasing a reminder, then begging accounting for an invoice. With Odoo, sales just clicks "Confirm Order" — the system automatically creates a picking list for the warehouse and a receivable entry for accounting. Everyone does their own job; nobody plays messenger.
• For managers/owners (real-time transparent data): no more waiting until month-end for departments to consolidate their Excel files. Open the Odoo dashboard and today's gross margin, current inventory turnover and outstanding receivables are all shown live — one click and you can make the decision.

The fundamental change: traditionally each department maintains its own data (sales keeps its Excel, the warehouse keeps its own ledger), which easily creates information silos. A shared database breaks that wall — the same data source flows through all modules in real time, eliminating duplicate cross-department data entry and achieving true information unity.

Follow the order "foundation → sales → purchasing → inventory → accounting", typically over 3–6 months. Stabilize the core flows first, then expand into advanced modules.

Developer mode is for advanced configuration (permissions, translations, custom fields). Keeping it always on is not recommended — turn it off once configuration is done. For safety, only system administrators should be allowed to enable it.

Odoo has an automatic locking mechanism — whoever edits later gets an "already edited by someone else" notice, so nothing is overwritten.

• Employee = internal staff who need a system login account
• Contact = customers, vendors, or contact persons under a customer — no login account needed

Only internal staff who actually need system access should be set up as employees.

Use Record Rules to restrict data visibility by role. This is best configured by the system administrator in developer mode.

Always archive, never delete! Deleting breaks the data links in historical records. After archiving, the account can no longer log in, but historical documents still show the person's name.

• Create the "company" record to represent the customer organization
• Add "persons" under that company for specific contact windows (e.g. purchasing manager, accounts receivable clerk)
• Invoices can then be sent to the company while quotations go to specific contacts — much more precise.

1. Export a template of existing customers first to confirm the field mapping
2. Check that required fields (name, company type) are complete
3. Import into a test environment first to validate
4. With external ID relations, follow the order "companies before contacts"
5. After importing, always spot-check 10–20 records

No! Once a product has been used (on a sales order, purchase order, or in stock), its product type and category are locked by the system. Always confirm the classification with accounting and the warehouse before creating it.

• Enable variants. Set up "size" and "color" attributes and the system generates every combination automatically
• Choose the "Immediately" mode to generate all variants at once
• Stock tracking, quotations and sales orders will then map precisely

• By default you confirm a quotation manually to turn it into an order
• Automatic conversion or amount-based approval requires workflow automation (an Enterprise feature)
• Or configure purchase order approval so amounts above a threshold need a manager's sign-off

• Set the sales order to Partial Delivery
• Each partial delivery produces its own invoice; the system splits them automatically
• Configure this in the Shipping section of the sales order

• Enable the Discuss module; every opportunity form has a message area at the bottom
• All internal notes, customer emails and scheduled activities are logged on that record
• Supports @mentioning colleagues, attaching documents and setting activity reminders

• Enable Reordering Rules on the product form
• Set the minimum and maximum stock levels
• The system automatically drafts a request for quotation, awaiting your confirmation

• Odoo supports multiple warehouses, each as an independent stock location
• You can specify which warehouse ships each sales order
• Inter-warehouse transfers are supported, with transfer orders generated automatically

• On the product's Inventory tab, change tracking to "By Lots"
• Record the lot number and expiry date when receiving stock
• Issue stock FIFO (first in, first out); the system flags expiring lots automatically

• Click "Return" at the bottom of the sales order
• The system automatically creates a reverse delivery order
• Stock is added back automatically and a refund or credit document is generated

• First connect Gmail or your company mail server (see the Gmail section of the user manual)
• Click "Send message" in the message area of the sales order
• Enterprise supports workflow automation for fully automatic sending

• You must configure the catchall mechanism and IMAP fetching
• When customers reply to the address Odoo sent from, the system captures the email and attaches it under the original order
• This preserves the complete communication trail

• Add the relevant colleagues as Followers on the document
• They will receive notifications for messages, internal notes and field changes
• Use "Edit subscription" to follow only specific events (e.g. deliveries but not price changes)

• Go to Sales → My Pipeline
• Switch the view (top right) to Pivot
• Group by salesperson, month and opportunity stage for instant statistics

• Go to Inventory → Inventory Analysis for stock value and turnover
• With lot tracking enabled, check expired lots under Inventory → Lots
• You can also add custom dashboard widgets for key KPIs

• Set each customer's language preference on the contact record
• Quotations and invoices sent by the system are automatically rendered in that language
• The Taiwan localization module applies the ROC invoice format automatically

• Use the terminology translation feature (see the user manual)
• Or hover over a field while editing and click the language code to change its translation directly
• Enterprise's Odoo Studio can rename form fields visually

• Odoo Online (the official cloud) is ISO 27001 certified, with automatic backups and data encryption
• For special security needs, choose self-hosted deployment or managed hosting by a certified partner
• Evaluate compliance requirements together with your IT team

• Odoo Online is backed up daily by Odoo automatically
• Self-hosted deployments need their own backup strategy
• Back up at least weekly, and immediately after critical document changes

• Odoo Online offers a 15-day free trial with all features included
• The Community edition is completely free and open source, but without official technical support
• Start with the trial to evaluate whether it fits your needs

• Odoo's modular design allows adjustments via custom modules or Odoo Studio
• The Community edition's source code can be modified, given technical capability
• Enterprise includes Odoo Studio (a visual customization tool) at relatively low cost
• For large-scale customization, evaluate with a certified partner

• Odoo's core strength is its LEGO-style flexibility
• Enable or disable modules, add fields and reconfigure workflows at any time
• Reserve a 2–3 month process-refinement period early in the implementation; don't rush go-live

• Odoo exports to standard Excel formats, so migrating to another system is relatively easy
• Confirm your data-export rights before signing the contract
• Choosing a certified partner lowers the risk