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Patrick


Hello everyone,

I am a SAP consultant, but have the feeling that Odoo could probably fulfill the business needs of many of the companies I have worked for, for much cheaper than SAP. However, regarding analytic accounting, what Odoo has to offer seems quite limited, to say the least (only tags in v9 ?)

For example, there are 2 very commonly used functionalities in SAP :

1. Cost allocation; that is the ability to automatically transfer costs from 1 analytic account to another (this is quite different from analytic distribution from Odoo v8). SAP is very efficient in letting the user define variable "keys" for such allocation (headcount, account balance the period, quantities in stock...).

This fubnctionality can be used to transfer common costs to complete costs for example.

2. Multi-dimensions; that is the ability to enter several distinct analytic accounts on the same posting (namely Business Area, Segment, Profit Center...)

3. Overheads; that is the ability to automatically calculate and post "overhead" costs on the basis of a percentage. OK this one is maybe less common in SAP, but I'm quite interested in it :-)

There are other "advanced" functionalities, like splitting, etc. but let's keep them for later...

So can someone explain me how any cost allocation can be done with Odoo apart from preparation in Excel and manual posting in Odoo analytic module ?

About multi dimensions analytic accounting, there is a promising looking 3rd party addon, but I haven't been able to test it yet :

https://bitbucket.org/xcg/analytic_structure

And about overheads, I just could not find anything out of product costing area.

Please express your views !


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Ray Carnes
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Costs can be allocated via Invoices.  On each invoice line you can enter the Analytic account (one dimension) that you want to book the expense into.

Most users are fine with splitting amounts and adding multiple Invoice lines where they want to do cost sharing (like a Utility Bill).

You can 'manually post' Analytic Journal Entries.  I'm curious about the UX for doing what you've suggested.

While Odoo could do distributions in the past, I never met a single user who could comprehend the UX - they all asked if they could just split lines on an Invoice.

Odoo has a solid data model and a very intelligent framework that allows developers to 'listen' for postings to Analytic Accounts - so it is certainly possible to have interim Accounts that know where to 'send' the expenses that are posted to them, based on any rule set.

So - it's all possible.  Out of the box it's just the basic expense or revenue posted based on an Invoice line with a single Account, but under the hood is a data model and customization framework that allows anything.


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