Reference
Odoo and ERP glossary
Plain-language definitions of the Odoo and ERP terms that come up most often in discovery, contracts, and implementation calls. 54 terms, A–Z.
Last reviewed:
A
- Access rights (groups) Permissions
- Odoo's permission model. Users are assigned to groups; each group grants read/write/create/delete permissions on specific models. Configure under Settings → Users & Companies → Groups.
- Action Customization
- A piece of automation in Odoo — typically a Server Action (server-side Python) or Automated Action (triggered by record changes). Used to extend Odoo behavior without writing a custom module.
- API key (Odoo) Integration
- User-specific authentication token for Odoo's XML-RPC and JSON-RPC APIs. Generated per user in Account Security. Used for integrations that authenticate as a specific user identity.
- App / Module Architecture
- Odoo's term for an installable functional unit. Sales, CRM, Inventory, etc. are apps. Internally each app is one or more Python modules. "App" and "module" are used interchangeably.
B
- BOM (Bill of Materials) Manufacturing
- Manufacturing structure listing the components, sub-assemblies, and operations needed to produce a finished product. Odoo supports multi-level, phantom, kit, and by-product BOMs.
C
- Chart of Accounts (CoA) Accounting
- The list of accounts used in your accounting system. Odoo provides country-specific charts of accounts for 90+ countries — IFRS, US GAAP, India GST-compliant, Saudi VAT-compliant, etc.
- Community Edition Editions
- The free, open-source edition of Odoo, licensed under LGPLv3. Includes a core set of apps (CRM, Sales, Inventory, Purchase, basic Accounting, HR, Project, eCommerce, Website, Marketing). Self-hosted only.
- Cron job (Scheduled action) Customization
- A recurring background task in Odoo — for example, MRP recalculations, recurring invoice generation, automated email follow-ups. Configurable under Technical → Scheduled Actions.
- Custom module Customization
- A Python module developed specifically for one customer to extend Odoo with features not in the standard product. Lives in a separate directory and follows Odoo's standard module structure.
D
- Discovery Engagement
- The first phase of TechUltra's implementation methodology. Fixed-price (USD 2,500–4,000 typical), 1 week, produces a written scope and fixed-price implementation quote.
E
- ECO (Engineering Change Order) Manufacturing
- PLM workflow in Odoo for managing controlled changes to BOMs and routings. Used in manufacturing for engineering revisions, with approval chains and audit trails.
- Enterprise Edition Editions
- Odoo's commercial edition with full app catalog, Studio, statutory localizations, and managed hosting options. Two tiers: Standard (~USD 25/user/month, Odoo Online only) and Custom (~USD 38/user/month, customization + flexible hosting).
- ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) General
- Integrated business management software covering finance, operations, HR, sales, and reporting in a single system. Odoo is an open-source ERP competing with SAP, NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, and Sage.
F
- FatturaPA Compliance
- Italy's mandatory B2B and B2G electronic invoicing format. XML structure transmitted via the SDI (Sistema di Interscambio). Odoo's Italian localization handles FatturaPA generation, validation, and archival.
- Fiscal position Accounting
- Odoo accounting feature mapping standard tax rates to alternative rates based on customer/vendor location or status. Used for VAT exemptions, reverse-charge VAT, cross-border tax handling.
- Functional consultant Engagement
- An Odoo consultant specializing in business-process configuration (vs. technical / developer consultants who write code). Functional consultants run discovery, configure modules, and lead UAT.
G
- GoBD (Germany) Compliance
- Grundsätze zur ordnungsmäßigen Führung und Aufbewahrung von Büchern, Aufzeichnungen und Unterlagen in elektronischer Form sowie zum Datenzugriff — Germany's regulations for electronic books and records. Odoo's German localization includes GoBD-compliant audit trails.
- GST (India) Compliance
- Goods and Services Tax — India's nationwide indirect tax regime. Odoo's Indian localization handles GST registration, e-invoicing (IRN generation via GSTN), e-way bills, and statutory returns (GSTR-1, GSTR-3B, GSTR-9).
H
- Hypercare Engagement
- The post-go-live stabilization period when implementation partners provide elevated, named-consultant support. TechUltra standard is 30 days, with daily standups week 1, SLA-backed defect resolution, and named consultant on-call.
I
- Inventory adjustment Inventory
- Periodic stock recount transaction in Odoo Inventory that reconciles the system's quantity-on-hand to the physical count. Generates accounting entries for variance.
- IRN (Invoice Reference Number) Compliance
- Unique identifier generated by India's Invoice Registration Portal (GSTN) for B2B invoices above turnover thresholds. Mandatory for e-invoicing compliance.
J
- Journal (Accounting) Accounting
- An Odoo accounting object that groups transactions by type — Sales Journal, Purchase Journal, Bank Journal, Miscellaneous Journal. Each journal has its own sequence and default accounts.
K
- Kanban view UI
- Card-based UI view in Odoo, used for visual workflow management (sales pipelines, project tasks, manufacturing work orders, recruitment pipelines). Drag-and-drop between stages.
L
- Landed cost Inventory
- Costs added to a product's inventory value after purchase — freight, duty, insurance, customs. Odoo's Inventory module distributes landed costs across received items proportionally.
- LGPLv3 Licensing
- Lesser General Public License version 3. The license under which Odoo Community is distributed. Allows commercial use, modification, and distribution; modifications to Odoo itself must remain open-source under the same license.
- Localization Configuration
- Country-specific configuration in Odoo — chart of accounts, tax structure, statutory reports, e-invoicing format, payroll rules. Odoo S.A. maintains 90+ official localizations; partners maintain additional regional ones.
M
- Manufacturing Order (MO) Manufacturing
- Odoo's record for a planned or in-progress production run. Linked to a BOM, contains work orders for each routing operation, consumes components and produces finished goods on completion.
- Master data Data
- The reference records in Odoo: products, customers, vendors, employees, accounts, locations. Master data quality and structure is the #1 predictor of post-go-live ERP success.
- MRP (Material Requirements Planning) Manufacturing
- Manufacturing-driven calculation that determines what to manufacture, what to purchase, and what to transfer between warehouses based on forecasts, sales orders, and stock levels. Odoo's MRP run can be scheduled or triggered manually.
O
- Odoo Online Hosting
- Odoo S.A.'s managed SaaS hosting. Included in Enterprise per-user license fee. Auto-upgrades, no customization possible (Standard plan) or limited customization (Custom plan via Odoo.sh).
- Odoo S.A. Vendor
- The Belgian company that develops and commercially distributes Odoo. Headquartered in Louvain-la-Neuve. Operates the partner network, runs Odoo Online and Odoo.sh, and ships the annual major release.
- Odoo.sh Hosting
- Odoo S.A.'s managed Git-based PaaS for Enterprise Custom customers. Supports custom modules, multiple environments (staging, production, branches), automated backups. Priced by workers + storage.
- OWL (Odoo Web Library) Architecture
- Odoo's frontend framework, used for the web client. JavaScript-based, reactive, used for custom UI components in Odoo 16+.
P
- Partner (implementation) Engagement
- An organization certified by Odoo S.A. to sell and implement Odoo. Three tiers: Ready, Silver, Gold. TechUltra Solutions is a Gold partner since August 2016.
- Partner (Odoo record) Data
- Odoo's term for any contact — customer, vendor, employee, lead, or company. A single Partner record can play multiple roles. Don't confuse with "Odoo partner" meaning implementation partner.
- Peppol Compliance
- Pan-European Public Procurement Online — an interoperability network for electronic invoicing across Europe. Increasingly the underlying standard for B2B and B2G e-invoicing in EU countries.
- PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) Manufacturing
- Odoo Enterprise module for managing engineering changes to products and BOMs. Handles ECO workflows, BOM versioning, document attachments per revision.
- PostgreSQL Architecture
- The relational database underlying Odoo. All Odoo data lives in a single PostgreSQL database per company instance. Required version follows the Odoo major release; Odoo 19 requires PostgreSQL 14+.
- PPF (Portail Public de Facturation) Compliance
- France's public e-invoicing portal, central to the mandatory B2B e-invoicing rollout from September 2026. PDPs (private dematerialization platforms) connect to PPF on behalf of businesses.
Q
- Quotation Sales
- Pre-confirmation sales record in Odoo Sales. Becomes a Sales Order on customer confirmation (manual or e-signature). Can have multiple versions, terms templates, and optional products.
R
- Reordering rule Inventory
- Odoo Inventory configuration that triggers replenishment when stock falls below a threshold. Generates a purchase order, manufacturing order, or inter-warehouse transfer depending on product setup.
- Routing Manufacturing
- Manufacturing sequence of operations through work centres needed to produce a product. A BOM references a routing; work orders are generated per routing step when a manufacturing order is confirmed.
S
- Sandbox / Staging Operations
- A non-production Odoo instance used for testing configuration, customization, or migrations before promoting to production. Odoo.sh provides built-in staging environments; self-hosted setups create them manually.
- Sequence Configuration
- Odoo's auto-numbering mechanism for documents (invoices, sales orders, manufacturing orders). Configurable per journal, per company, with prefix/suffix/padding controls.
- SII (Spain) Compliance
- Suministro Inmediato de Información — Spain's mandatory near-real-time VAT data submission to the AEAT tax authority. Required for businesses with turnover above EUR 6M; optional below.
- Studio (Odoo) Customization
- Enterprise-only no-code customization tool. Edit forms, list views, add fields, build basic workflows without writing Python. Limited compared to custom modules but useful for fast iteration on standard apps.
T
- TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) Pricing
- Full multi-year cost of operating an ERP — license + implementation + ongoing support + hosting + internal effort. Three-year TCO is the standard ERP comparison metric. Odoo's three-year TCO for a 50-user mid-market deployment is typically USD 130,000–220,000.
- Three-way matching Procurement
- Procurement control that matches a purchase order, vendor bill, and goods receipt before approving payment. Odoo Purchase + Inventory + Accounting handle three-way matching natively.
U
- UAT (User Acceptance Testing) Engagement
- Formal pre-go-live phase where the customer's team runs scripted test cases against the configured system. UAT signoff is the gate before production cutover. Defect log + resolution cycle.
V
- Validated record Data
- A confirmed / posted record in Odoo (e.g. a posted journal entry, a confirmed sales order, a done picking). Validated records typically can't be edited — only reversed or cancelled — to preserve audit trail.
- VAT (Value Added Tax) Compliance
- Indirect tax used in most countries outside the US. Odoo's Tax engine handles VAT calculation, multi-rate scenarios (standard, reduced, zero), VAT exemptions, reverse-charge VAT, intra-EU transactions.
- View (Odoo UI) Architecture
- An Odoo UI definition: form view, list view, kanban view, calendar view, pivot view, graph view, search view. Defined in XML; can be inherited and extended by custom modules.
W
- Workflow (deprecated) / Automated action Customization
- Odoo had a Workflow engine until version 10; from 11+ workflows are implemented as model methods and automated actions. "Workflow" in modern Odoo usually means "business process" colloquially, not the deprecated engine.
Z
- ZATCA Compliance
- Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority — Saudi Arabia's tax authority. Operates the Fatoorah e-invoicing system. Phase 1 (Generation) live since December 2021; Phase 2 (Integration) phased rollout since 2023, requires XML invoices + QR + cryptographic stamp + ZATCA portal integration.