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Hi,
We are an organization spread across multiple cities, using Odoo to manage purchase, inventory and sales. Our vendor has currently configured Odoo using just a single warehouse, with a tree of locations within it to help us keep stock at various places.
Are there any disadvantages in this approach, compared to using a different warehouse for each city/building that we have stock in?
Setup your Odoo database to match as closely as possible to the real world as possible.
A Warehouse in Odoo is designed to model a building with an address.
A Location in Odoo is designed to model a fixed shelf, rack, row, bay, vault, room, floor or marked section/area inside a building with an address
See also What is the difference between warehouses and locations? — Odoo 14.0 documentation
Multiple warehouses are recommended where there is a delay between when products move FROM and TO where they are and need to go. Normally one person is responsible for moving products FROM where they are and another person in a different building is responsible for moving them TO where they need to go. The products are "in transit" for several minutes, hours, or days. You will have TWO steps - a Delivery followed by a Receipt - to move products - and be able to manage any "lost" products during the movement/transfer. You will be able to see when the movement of products is complete (when both steps are complete).
If you need to load items onto a truck and drive them from A to B, then A and B are likely different warehouses.
Multiple locations are recommended where there is no real delay between when products move FROM and TO where they are and need to go. Normally the same person, in the same building, is responsible for moving products FROM where they are TO where they need to go. The products are not "in transit" for longer than a few minutes. You will have ONE step - an Internal Transfer - to move products.
If you can walk (or use a cart/forklift to move) items from A to B, then A and B are likely different locations.
If you actually have multiple physical warehouses then you must use multi warehouse options as if you have a workflow for routing like if stock is not available in "C" location then it must be supplied from "A" location automatically. So yes if you use multiwarehouse it will help you automate the flow and also setup will be a bit less confusing if set up properly.
There is a possibility that you don't use the same staff for all warehouses' actions since the organization is spread across multiple cities. So it's better to use multiple warehouses to avoid any kind of confusion & also it reduces the chances of wrong entry about a Product and its Location.
And also if you use Multi Warehouse facility of Odoo then you will be able to use a new Route " Resupply from Another Warehouse" . When there is not enough stock in a Warehouse Odoo can use pull rule to bring stock from the other Warehouse if the Route is activated in the Product form.
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Pritee Pallavi Behera
Odoo Consultant
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