Guide
Odoo glossary
The Odoo terms you will hear in workshops, proposals and release notes, explained in plain English.
- Analytic accounting
- Tagging income and costs by project, department, fund or any other dimension, alongside the normal chart of accounts. Odoo groups dimensions into analytic plans.
- App (module)
- A unit of Odoo functionality, such as Sales or Inventory. Technically every app is a module; not every module is an app.
- Automation rule
- A rule that runs an action when a record is created, changed or reaches a date — for example, assigning a lead or sending a reminder.
- Bill of materials (BoM)
- The list of components and operations needed to make or assemble a product. Kits are BoMs that are exploded at sale instead of manufactured.
- Chatter
- The message and activity log at the bottom of most records, showing emails, notes, scheduled activities and field changes.
- Community edition
- The free, open-source edition of Odoo under the LGPL licence. Self-hosted, without the Enterprise-only apps.
- Company (multi-company)
- A legal entity in the database. One Odoo database can hold several companies with intercompany rules.
- Dropshipping
- A route where the supplier ships directly to your customer; Odoo creates the purchase order from the sales order.
- Enterprise edition
- The licensed edition of Odoo, adding apps such as full Accounting, Studio, Helpdesk, Planning, Quality and Barcode.
- Fiscal position
- Rules that swap taxes and accounts for certain customers or suppliers, for example exports or intra-EU sales.
- IAP credits
- In-app purchase credits used to pay for Odoo services such as SMS, document digitisation and, from Odoo 20, AI features.
- ir.access
- The Odoo 20 security model in which access rights carry their own domain, replacing record rules. Custom modules with security files must be updated.
- Journal
- A book of accounting entries of one type, such as sales, purchases, bank or cash.
- JSON-2 API
- Odoo's newer external API. In Odoo 20, XML-RPC and JSON-RPC are deprecated in favour of it.
- Kanban view
- A card-based view grouped in columns, used for pipelines, tasks, manufacturing orders and more.
- Landed costs
- Freight, duty and other costs added to the value of received stock so product cost is accurate.
- Localisation
- Country-specific modules with the chart of accounts, taxes, reports and statutory features for a country.
- Lot / serial number
- Tracking for batches of a product (lots) or individual units (serial numbers), for traceability and recalls.
- MRP
- Material requirements planning: Odoo's Manufacturing app, planning production and component purchases from demand.
- OCA
- The Odoo Community Association, which maintains a large library of open-source Odoo modules.
- Odoo Online
- Odoo's SaaS hosting. Standard apps and Studio only; no custom code or third-party modules.
- Odoo.sh
- Odoo's hosting platform for Enterprise with custom code, linked to GitHub with staging and development branches.
- OpenUpgrade
- Community-maintained migration scripts used to upgrade Odoo Community databases between versions.
- ORM
- Odoo's object-relational mapper: the Python layer that models business objects and stores them in PostgreSQL.
- OWL
- The Odoo Web Library, the JavaScript framework used to build Odoo's user interface.
- Picking
- A stock transfer document: a receipt, internal transfer, pick, pack or delivery.
- Portal user
- An external user, such as a customer or supplier, who can see their own documents through the portal without a paid licence.
- Pricelist
- Rules that set sales prices by customer, quantity, date or currency.
- QWeb
- Odoo's templating engine for reports (PDFs) and website pages.
- Record rule
- A filter limiting which records a user group can see or change. Removed in Odoo 20 and replaced by ir.access domains.
- Reordering rule
- A minimum/maximum stock rule that creates purchase or manufacturing orders automatically. Odoo 20 can suggest the levels.
- Route
- A set of rules defining how products move: buy, manufacture, dropship, or multi-step receipts and deliveries.
- Server action
- A configurable action — update records, run code, send messages — triggered manually, by automation rules or on a schedule.
- Studio
- Odoo Enterprise's no-code tool for adding fields, views, reports and automations.
- Upgrade service
- Odoo's service that migrates an Enterprise database's standard data to a new version. Custom modules are not included.
- Work centre
- A machine, line or team where manufacturing operations happen, with capacity and cost per hour.
Next step
Need someone to translate Odoo into your business?
Book a call and we will walk you through what each part means for your processes.