Inventory adjustment is the most essential procedure for any product business dealing with the selling or distributing physical commodities. Inaccurate data on stock invokes stockouts and overstocks and lowers the overall level of customer satisfaction. Luckily, since Odoo is an integrated ERP, you can easily make the changes through Odoo and rebalance your stock levels. For inventory discrepancies, low-quality items, or stock count processes, this tutorial will guide you through managing inventory adjustments in Odoo.
What Are Inventory Adjustments in Odoo?
Let us first explain Odoo’s inventory adjustments and why you will need them before discussing the “how.”
What Are Inventory Adjustments?
Inventory adjustments in Odoo allow you to manually adjust your inventories based on the actual physical units of your products in warehouses. These adjustments will be needed whenever you find a difference between physical stock and what Odoo has captured in its journals.
Typical situations for requiring inventory adjustments in Odoo are:
- Stock Discrepancies: Stock miscounts due to technical failure or human error.
- Damaged Goods: Products made saleable at the current point of time.
- Stocktaking: Seldom double verification of the stock for bookkeeping.
- Theft or Loss: Products stolen from the warehouse by uncontrollable sources.
Manual vs. Automatic Adjustments
Two forms of adjustments may be performed in Odoo: manual or automatic.
- Manual Adjustments: These are performed manually, where you count stock and update the system manually to post actual quantities.
- Automatic Adjustments: Odoo will also automatically adjust your stock quantity, either based on some other module (such as purchase orders or sales) or on some rules you define to reorder.
They ensure the system has actual figures in your warehouse.
Preparation of Inventory Adjustments in Odoo
Preparation before entering and adjusting should be done to ensure accuracy and consistency in the process.
Setting Up Product Categories and Warehouses
Properly setting up your warehouses and product categories is beneficial for entering and adjusting them easily. Each product should be assigned the appropriate category, and directions on how to process the stocks should be assigned to each warehouse.
For instance, you may command that the products of a category (e.g., electronics) are kept in certain warehouses, and these warehouses ought to contain some number of them, as per experience.
User Roles and Permissions
Not everyone within your organization should have the authority to adjust inventory. Odoo allows you to define a role with specific permission so that you can identify who can view and edit stock. It protects against document manipulation or mistakes and enables your stock to be processed safely.
Create roles in Odoo to address your firm’s internal controls. For instance, supervisors and managers in the warehouses should be responsible for approving inventory adjustments within Odoo.
Step-by-Step Guide on How to Create Inventory Adjustments in Odoo
We have now finished and created the setup, so let’s proceed with creating the inventory adjustments in Odoo.
Navigating around the Inventory Module
To open the changes, go to the Odoo Inventory module. This is where the entire inventory process will commence. There, look for the Inventory Adjustments menu.
Making an Inventory Adjustment
This is how one does a new inventory adjustment:
- Choose “Inventory Adjustments”: Look for the “Inventory Adjustments” menu from the Inventory module. Click it to start the process.
- Select the Warehouse: You must select where you are adjusting. Select the warehouse on which physical count or stock variance was performed.
- Select Product Categories: Adjust the stock of one category or all the items in the warehouse. If the stock audit is performed entirely, select all the categories.
- Add Products to Adjust: You will see a list of products after choosing the categories. If you realize that some products are missing, you can add them manually to the list.
Physical Counting of the Products
The second is the physical counting of the products. It means counting every product that you are counting into the warehouse. One person will do the physical counting while another will input the data on Odoo. Confirm the quantities, and do not rush to do the count. After counting, enter the physical numbers into their respective columns on Odoo.
Saving and Validating Adjustments
Once you have completed the physical counts, Odoo will allow you to save or validate them.
- Save: If you want to save the changes but verify them later, click Save. This will save the adjustment in draft mode.
- Validate: If the changes are accurate, click Validate. This will save and validate the changes based on your stock levels.
Managing Negative and Positive Stock Adjustments
While handling your stock in Odoo, you will work with positive and negative stock differences.
Positive Adjustments
Positive corrections are made when Odoo shows you a smaller quantity of products than what you have in your warehouse. It could be due to historical entry errors or incoming products from the system.
Take Odoo as an example. If Odoo shows you that you have 50 units of a product, but when you manually count them, you know you’ve had 70 earlier, you’d correct positively by +20 units.
Negative Adjustments
Negative adjustments occur when you are letting out more stock than you have in the warehouse. This is because something has happened, e.g., theft or transit loss.
For example, if your system carries 100 and you have only 80, you will have a negative adjustment of -20.
Best Practices
In attempts to balance positive and negative adjustments well
- Tracing the Reasoning: Always trace why it changed—loss, damage, or stocktaking. It is good to refer back to.
- Regular Stock Audits: Periodic stock-takes prevent massive adjustments from taking place. Some frequent auditors plan occasionally so that differences are caught and corrected before errors are made.
Inventory Adjustment Workflows
Part of it may be automated through Odoo to make adjustment easier. One example is reordering rules.
Automating Adjustments Using Reordering Rules
Odoo reordering rules will automatically create Odoo stock updates according to pre-defined parameters. You can, for instance, restock products when their levels fall to a pre-defined minimum. Used mainly in procurement, they will also eliminate manual updating since they will maintain your levels at all times.
Using Barcode Scanning
Barcode scanning is also among the best ways of handling inventory adjustments in Odoo. Odoo makes it possible to use barcode scanners to scan by utilizing them so that warehouse staff can scan and input quantities without manually typing data. This is then error-free courtesy of man and accelerates adjustment processes.
Real-Time Tracking
Odoo’s real-time inventory adjustment always keeps the changes current across the system. Adjusting Odoo’s inventory means your system automatically updates your inventory levels based on those adjustments, so your buying and sales teams are working with the most current information.
Conclusion
Odoo’s stock reconciliation appears to be time-consuming, but due to the ease of features and facilities given in Odoo, it can be performed easily and hassle-free. If procedures are followed as per this tutorial and the automated tools given in Odoo, accurate stock and hassle-free warehouse management can be attained.
Never forget that inventory control is an ongoing process. Daily stock checking, correct setup, and maintenance will keep your stock in check and avoid expensive errors. Log into your Odoo system today, start managing your inventory adjustments in Odoo, and view your business in a whole new way!
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