Some people have trouble keeping track of where they left their keys. Others have trouble keeping track of where they left their wallet. While these things happen, that lack of traceability becomes even more important when running a business. For some, keeping track of their inventory and where products are located can make or break a business. If this is you, and you have trouble keeping track of your products, and want to be better about monitoring the in an outs of stock in your stores and warehouses, then the Inventory application and our very own Course might be just what you need!
Inventory is a fairly large application and one of the more complicated ones in Odoo to learn. Like all of our courses, we’ve broken it down into small pieces, which makes learning to manage Inventory a piece of cake! This application allows you the user the ability to monitor and log your inventory and warehouses with just a few clicks. For example: In order to create multiple variations of the same product, say different colors, you could create 5 separate products, or you can do things the easy way, the Odoo way, and set up variants, allowing you to create 1 single product, with 5 different color options.
This will help you by taking less time to not only create new products and store them in your inventory, but also help you locate the products within Odoo. From a single product template (the technical name for the model in Odoo), you have access to on-hand stock quantity, forecasted quantities based on sales and purchases, you can view the different moves as a product travels from the receiving location, to its storage location, to a shipping station and finally out to the customer. It's quite a lot to take in on a single screen, but Odoo makes it easy.
Another useful feature about the app is that not only can you set up multiple warehouses, and locations in those warehouses, but you can also go so far as to set up aisles in those locations, shelves in those aisles, and bins on those shelves. Think of it as a Russian nesting doll but for inventory management.
To be able to pin down and go to a specific storage location to know exactly where a product should be, well, let's just say you shouldn't be losing your wallet or keys, let alone valuable stock anymore. This application is an essential app for those businesses who might not have enough staff to help with stock management, as many new or small businesses deal with exactly that situation. In the inventory app, you can set up rules and routes as well as reordering rules. What does this mean? Well, you can set up a reordering rule so that as soon as your stock level hits a certain amount, Odoo will automatically order more stock from the manufacturer. This way you dont have to worry about fulfilling orders if your on hand stock is low. The best part, this can all be done in just a few clicks.
Now back to the course itself. First, you will cover different Configuration settings for this application as a whole. Then, you will move into Basic Product Configuration where you will cover variants, category settings, the different smart buttons on the product template, replenishment routes, and stock moves. Oh my!
Among other things, you'll learn about:
Warehouse Management:
- In this section, you will learn how to configure one or multiple warehouses. We will also show you how to add locations within those warehouses, and talk about the difference of each location type. You will learn what Operation Types are, how you can use Rules + Routes and Put-away Rules to get your products exactly where you need them to be.
Maintaining Stock Levels:
- Keeping products in stock and ready-to-deliver is key in running a successful warehouse, and that’s where the Reordering Rules and Replenishment that we touched on come in. You will learn how a function known as The Scheduler keeps Odoo Inventory running like a well-oiled machine.
Keeping Count:
See, first hand, how easy it is to complete an Inventory Adjustment, or write off unusable inventory the right way with Scrap Operations. We even explain, in detail, how Barcode Operations make inventory management a job you’ll look forward to. We cover the set-up and usage of Shipping Methods in Odoo, as well as basic carrier connector configuration. You will learn how to apply shipping to settings, set-up a shipping product, and make your shipping costs work with your business.By using Lead Times, you can always be sure your product gets to your customer when they’re expecting it. We’ll show you how to use these lead times in conjunction with one another, and the formula behind each one. Finally, we’ll show you a standard Inventory Workflow for someone who processes stock on a daily basis, and we’ll also explain what all of those Transfer Statuses mean!
