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Jens Brenner

I understand that the "normal" approach of Getting products into Odoo inventory" is to create a purchase order.

In my case, I normally order my products from vendors via their webshop and not via request. Therefore, I don't have a purchase order, but a bill/invoice from the vendor showing prices, quantities etc.

Is there a way to start with this information? How do you organize your workflow in that case?
I don't know if I'm ready for implementing OCR functions, but I'd just like to know how you handle this.

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Diogo Duarte
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After creating a PO, it will take you 2 clicks to receive products and create vendor bill. I fell that's the fastest way to get correct stock and then it will wait for the OCR to match the incoming invoice with PO (you just need to pass the PO ref on your vendor portal ... usually they should have a place for that even if it's a notes field)

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Lars Aam
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It is not only in Odoo there is normal to have a purchase order for everything yoy buy. It is Best Practice.  And even if you buy from a webshop, it is recommended that you take the effort to create a purchase order. It is the only way to control that you pay for what you receive. Use Three way matching.

Short cuts are possible.  Create manually a Goods receipt in inventory. Create vendor bill in accounting. They can be independent of each other. 

OCR - I recommend.  It only read the PDF invoice and try to fill in the fields in the Vendor Bill. It will improve over time, to save you from enter manually. It got one obvius weakness: It does not recognize Purchase order number from the vendor document.

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Jens Brenner
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What do you mean by three way matching? Is this the function for which I'd have to switch to Enterprise Odoo?

Where is the shortcut? When I create a purchase order, I have to choose/create the ordered products and that leads to the receipt and the vendor bill.

When I create a manual Goods receipt entry and a vendor bill, that wouldn't save any time, wouldn't it?

How do you use OCR? On the Odoo-side, or do you run OCR over your bills, convert them and load it into Odoo afterwards?

Lars Aam

- You did not mention your version. I don't know if 'Three way matching' exist in community version. Three way matching check that your invoice matches Purchase order and goods receipt. Can be overridden, yes.

- The short cut was to avoid purchase order, but still have a goods receipt. Goods receipt are mandatory if you manage inventory. Else you don't need it. (But if you create a purchase order with consumable product, goods receipt must be registered. Also best practice)

-You can register Vendor bill without any goods receipt, and without any products.

- OCR is included in Odoo for incoming vendor bills. Option to activate under settings in Accounting. In Enterprise version at least.

Final comment: Odoo got by default Best pratice business processes, that are recommended to follow. Also Odoo provide quite a lot of user documentation and videos of how the processes are ment to work. Recommended to spend time on.

Jens Brenner
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I checked - 3-way matching is "Enterprise-only". Sad to hear, I use Odoo Community 12.

If I follow the best practice: 1.) create purchase order 2.) create receipt of products 3.) create vendor bill - isn't it also 3-way matching?

You mention Vendor bill without goods receipt and products. That is what I did first following what I thought could be a logic workflow. I created the vendor bill, added all ordered products and finally got a "copy" of the original vendor bill including all correct prices and quantities. I thought, I could derive from that the receipt for my inventory, but it seems to be wrong way.

Thanks a lot for your assistance. I already spent some time watching videos and reading, but the separation of community and enterprise doesn't make it very easy because more often, I find out that the described features are only available on enterprise.

Lars Aam

Only a purchase order will create the link between goods receipt and vendor bill. Be also aware of the accounting for stock manage products. They got a value, and there should be an account set to post profit / loss on price differencies. It will use the price from the purchase order when you do goods receipt and the price form the invoice when you post the vendor bill. So using both these, you COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold) correct.