Entrepreneurs prioritize inventory management for accuracy and efficiency in business operations. Odoo's real-time inventory organization, monitoring, and management system offers advanced features for order processing, inventory identification, and stock management. It provides immediate replenishment, detailed item displays, and activity logs during inventory transfers. The Odoo Inventory module is an ideal tool for handling various inventory-related tasks, offering complete support for businesses to operate successfully. The system facilitates automated order transfers across warehouses and locations, provides quantitative and analytical data for inventory analysis, and facilitates product trading using lots and serial numbers. Odoo's inventory management solution offers several benefits for companies seeking to simplify their operations and improve their operations.
Operations In Odoo Inventory
The methodical handling of a company's stock, including its raw materials, components, and completed goods, is referred to as Inventory Operations. Processing and warehousing are also involved. Inventory managers direct a team to receive and register new goods while keeping an eye on the company's inventory levels. Daily deliveries, assessing fresh supplies, and researching suppliers are among their responsibilities. We will go through the process of setting different product Reservation Methods offered by the Odoo 16 Inventory Module in this blog session. You can install and open the Odoo 16 Inventory Module to start with the process.
Inventory Overview Dashboard
A comprehensive description of all potential Inventory Operations, including receipts, Internal Transfers, Delivery Orders, Returns, Manufacturing, Resupply Subcontractors, POS Orders, Dropship, and others, is provided in the Inventory module's "Inventory Overview" window. In the menu bar, the module provides unique choices for managing various tasks independently. Particularly in a multi-company situation, where the overview encompasses inventory operations for all specified businesses, the platform concisely summarizes all activities.
You can open and manage all the “Transfers” and “Configurations.” Also, it is easy to create Immediate Transfers and planned Transfers with the help of the vertical three-dotted menu.
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If the database is functioning in a multi-company scenario, you can open the Kanban view of each Operation to examine the overview of all the inventory operations of all the businesses defined in your system.
Configuring Operation Types and Deciding Reservation of a Product
You can rapidly create new operation types in the Odoo 16 Inventory module with the help of the specialized tools provided in the module. The configuration form of an existing Operation Type can be opened from the three-dotted menu of the specific Kanban View available in the “Inventory Overview” window, and you can modify them. Also, you can use the “Operation Types” option available in the “Configuration” menu. You can see the list view of all the pre-configured Operation Types as shown below.
You can create a new one by pressing the “NEW” button or edit the existing one by clicking on the respective column. In this instance, I am selecting an existing Operation Type named “Manufacturing.” So, you can see its configuration form view as shown below.
To create a new operation type in Odoo, each of the following fields must be filled out: "Type of Operation," "Sequence Prefix,", "Barcode," "Reservation Method," and "Company." By using the Ask option in the “Create Backorder” area, you can decide whether or not to place a backorder for any unsold items. You can also products traceability features inside the “TRACEABILITY” section. Additionally, the product source and destination locations can be set under the “LOCATIONS” tab.
Now, we are going to concentrate on the different types of “Reservation Methods” and their sample scenarios. In Odoo Inventory, the products are preserved in transfers according to the Reservation Method, whether Manually, At confirmation, or Before the Scheduled Date.
1. At Confirmation
In this Reservation Method, the products or services will be reserved immediately after confirming the order. So, after setting the Reservation Method as “At Confirmation,” we can check the functionality from the Odoo 16 Manufacturing Module.
A new Manufacturing Order can be easily created by opening the application and selecting "Operations" from the menu.
Just open a new configuration form by hitting the “NEW” button of the “Manufacturing Orders” window and create a new order. You can check the detailed explanation of creating a Manufacturing Order from the link provided below.
How to Create Manufacturing Orders
We can quickly create a new order with some basic information and save the details inside the form, as shown below.
We are making a manufacturing order request for a new product in this instance; thus, we require specific components. Therefore, when you click the "CONFIRM" button, the components will be reserved right away because we have "At Confirmation" selected as the Reservation Method in our inventory.
The Manufacturing Order has been confirmed, as can be seen in the Pipeline Stages section. After that, the "Transfers" smart button will show the component details. The view of this feature will be different for each type of Operation Type. After confirming the Manufacturing Order, you can proceed with the next steps.
2. Manually
The products or components must be reserved using this reservation method by manually validating and confirming a manufacturing order. Thus, on the Inventory Platform, select "Manually" as the Reservation Type.
Then, create a Manufacturing Order.
You can then confirm the order by clicking the "CONFIRM" button after making the necessary modifications. The products are not reserved yet, and you can see them from the “Reserved” column of the “Components” tab, as shown below.
You can see the components from the “Transfers” smartbutton. In this case, you have to manually reserve the components by opening the “Transfers” tab and validating each component by opening each component column.
After opening a column, you can manually check the availability of the products or parts then if it's available.
After checking the product or component's availability, you can validate each component individually. When you look at the "Reserved" part of the "Components" Tab, you can see that the components are now reserved.
3. Before Scheduled Date
The items or components will be reserved using this reservation method before a certain number of days from the actual manufacture date. Thus, you can select "Before scheduled date" as the Reservation Method in the Inventory Module and specify the number of days before the planned date that you wish to reserve the components in the "Reserve before scheduled date" column.
I Have set it as “2 days.” Now go to the Manufacturing Module and open the product configuration form of the particular product that we are going to manufacture. In the “Inventory” tab of the product’s form view, you can set the reserve days inside the “Days to prepare Manufacturing Order” field, as illustrated below.
Then, create a new Manufacturing Order. After editing the required information inside the form view, I have entered an upcoming date in the “Scheduled Date” as the planned date for our new manufacturing order. Confirm the manufacturing order using the “CONFIRM” button.
You can see the components have been reserved today itself before our actual scheduled date.
After completing the process, you can unreserve the components using the “UNRESERVE” button.
These are the Reservation Methods available inside the “Manufacturing” Operation Type. We can set this kind of reservation method for various Operation Types inside the Odoo 16 Inventory Module.