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OpenERP Modules Work Manual

OpenERP software suite which is a full-fledged Enterprise Resource Planning application built using the popular Python language and the enterprise-class database PostgreSQL. The comprehensive ERP is perfectly equipped with over 300 modules to assist organizations in increasing productivity by bringing their various business functions together and increasing the connectivity between them manifold. The impressive software system not only possesses the ability to seamlessly adapt to the functioning of small & medium scale enterprises but also is perfectly poised to handle operations of big organizations. These intelligent, tailor-made systems are equipped with technologies that allow users to retrieve the most complex of business data/reports, thus providing them with the power to handle the most intricate business problems with ease & simplicity.

• Finance & Accounting
• Customer Relationship Management
• Human Resource Management
• Sales Management
• Manufacturing
• Stock Management
• Purchase Management
• Project Management
• Business Intelligence & Reporting

Business Intelligence & Reporting

Each module of OpenERP is equipped with reporting tools and dashboards that provides you critical insights into your business and improve decision-making. You can virtually access any information that you require at any given point of time. You can access the most complex of data by customizing these reports to meet your requirements. And the filter and search options make life even easier by allowing you to drill down to most intricate details.

OpenERP provides Dashboards that integrate information from various components of the system into a unified display. These highly intelligent & effective graphical user interfaces easy to comprehend and allow you to monitor contribution of various departments in your organization, thus empowering you to take quick & accurate decisions. In short, they bring your entire organization on one page in a single click.

Project Management

As organizations continue to expand their horizons and multiply rapidly in terms of geography, size & revenues, efficient management of various resources of the projects plays an increasingly critical role in determining the success of such projects. To follow strict timelines and ensure quality of output, judicious allocation of time, work & people against critical tasks and constant monitoring of project data is essential.

OpenERP’s Project Management module empowers organization to effortlessly deal with complexity of large projects. Be it any kind of project, the module is perfectly poised to facilitate planning of all work that is required for completion of the project. You can handle critical activities such as allocating resources, tracking project progress, communicating with clients about status updates and do much more.

Project Management

Manage complete life cycle of your projects with OpenERP Project Management module. You can create projects, choose to structure projects by dividing projects into phases and sub-phases, link phases, allocate resources to each project and track those resources effectively.

Tasks

Projects are made up of various tasks, which can be managed using the module. The module provides you the flexibility to create tasks, assign resources to tasks, delegate tasks, periodically review them and monitor their progress.

Time Management

Time management with respect to projects can be done in two ways – Timesheets and Time-boxes. While timesheet allows users to record time spent on each activity, time-boxing allows users to manage their time on projects judiciously and allows them to keep track of the planned hours and the time spent on each activity.

Scheduling

Schedule all/specific projects by phase or task using Gantt Charts that help in better planning of the project.

Purchase Management

OpenERP enables you to organize your company’s purchases by enabling you to manage the entire process right from creating request for quotations to accepting delivery of goods and payment.

Request for Quotation

Request for Quotation (RFQ) is the primary process in Purchase Management. OpenERP Purchase module allows you to request a quote from the supplier for the list of products that need to be purchased. Upon receipt of the best quote from the supplier, the manager can approve the RFQ using the module and generate a purchase order. While some RFQ are created manually, some of them are generated automatically due to events such as computation of minimum stock rules.

Purchase Order

An approved RFQ is a Purchase Order. The module equips users with the power to confirm Purchase Order and raise a pro-forma supplier invoice to be paid. All Purchase Orders can be viewed according to the state they are currently in.

Supplier Contacts

Contact information of all suppliers including the address, price lists, concerned authority and other details is maintained in centralised address book. At any point of time, users can view all the transaction carried out with a supplier using the history tab.

Invoicing

Generate supplier invoices automatically on purchase and send them for approval to the finance department.

Stock Management

The Stock Management module of OpenERP helps your organization in managing the inventory at various locations, which include locations internal to the organization and external locations such as that of customers & suppliers. The entire module is based on location hierarchy which makes the management of inventory highly efficient and convenient.

Location Management

Manage all internal as well as external locations of your organization with a click – create physical/virtual locations, manage delivery methods and pricelists according to each location, categorize them as warehouses, create and the entire location hierarchy.

Products

Use the product management module to add products and view their stock details in a single click. At any point of time, you may choose to view products at a single location by choosing the location from the location structure. These locations can be linked in order to define paths for movement of products.

Traceability

Tracking is possible with the help of concepts such as Tracking Lots and Production Lots. While tracking lots allow users to track a set of products, production lots are used to track a set of single product. Products are moved from one place to another several time before they reach their destination and OpenERP not only allows users to track (both upstream and downstream) every move of the product, but also provides them with the facility to view transactions of the past or transactions that are planned for future.

Automatic Procurements

Script minimum stock rules to avoid running out of stock at any point of time. Specify minimum and maximum stock levels that will ensure that your stock is automatically procured to keep up with your stock requirement. Purchase orders are generated automatically during such transactions.

Warehouse Management

Manage all your incoming products, internal moves, outgoing products and delivery orders. Incoming products are ones that are sent by suppliers on raising a purchase order. You also have the flexibility to manage back orders and reception of products by order lines. Internal moves represent movement of products within internal locations (generally warehouse) of your organization. You can define internal movements, create new transactions, approve such transactions for packing and track them till destination.

Outgoing products are orders that are moved from the warehouse to another location (for instance, delivery) on confirmation of sales orders. Delivery orders represent the final movement to the customer. You may choose to move your products to the customer in a single go or choose to do so by moving the product from stock to say, quality and further to the customer after confirmation.

Manufacturing

Employ the OpenERP Manufacturing module to automate your manufacturing department and integrate it with the rest of your organization. Manage your manufacturing resources, create multi-level bill of materials (BoM), define assembly paths, create production/procurement orders and manage repairs.

Bill of Materials

Prepare single/multi level master bill of materials, define the list of raw materials/sub-products involved in manufacturing of the finished product, structure your bill of materials and retrieve the status of items in the list in a single click. You can define the routes taken to manufacture/assemble a given product and the system will ensure completion of the process and raise exceptions, if any.

Scheduling

Plan your entire manufacturing process in advance using the ‘Compute Schedulers’ function of OpenERP, which is the core of planning. The scheduler is generally programmed to run once a day and computes the requirement using the stock minimum rules defined. The scheduler also organizes manufacturing orders based on priorities and generates purchase orders in case of missing components.

Control

Should there be any exceptions in the process of ordering missing components or scheduling production, the module automatically informs the user about the same. All issues are logged in a central repository from where the user can resolve them, post which the system resumes the process and ensures completion.

Manufacturing

The manufacturing module of OpenERP is well integrated with the other modules to maintain continuity in the business processes. Manufacturing orders provide details on the materials used at each stage of production, while procurement orders ensure continuity by ordering components and automatically to keep up with the manufacturing process. Work orders allow user to define the operations involved in assembling or manufacturing products and thus allow the user to maintain track of manufacturing costs.

The module also facilitates management of repairs. Users can record new repair activities, provide details, approve the repairs, raise invoices and track the process till completion.

Sales Management

With OpenERP’s Sales Management module, you can automate and streamline your complete order-to-cash sales process and realize cost savings. You can reduce operational costs by simplifying the entire process and ensuring that you channelize your best resources towards profitable sales.

Sales Order & Management

Draft sales quotations and let the entire process be handled by the system. Select multiple products in a single order, select delivery and manufacturing lead time, provide discounts and add shipping charges. On confirmation, the system diligently checks for stock availability, computes taxes and other costs involved to generate a sales order for further approval. Manager can choose to approve the sales orders, send the same to picking and raise an invoice to be sent to the customer. Should the product be ‘made to order’, the control is passed on the manufacturing module of OpenERP which handles the entire process of manufacturing till delivery.

The user has the flexibility to choose from various shipping & packing options, payments terms and delivery method.

Sales Forecast

Define you sales periods and forecast sales for your current period. You can also forecast sales for a particular user or for your organization.

Tracking

Keep track of all sales orders by configuring your sales dashboard and stay updated with the latest happenings in your sales department.

Human Resource Management

The Human Resource (HRM) module of OpenERP is vigilantly designed to meet the ever growing needs of your enterprise. This comprehensive module facilitates in managing your most crucial resource – people, in the most efficient manner, thus providing an ideal platform to manage your HR processes and align the same to your business goals.

Employees

Manage all information pertaining to your employees with the centralized employee directory. Add and structure employees, assign them to departments, create users, add them to groups, provide access rights, manage contracts and much more.

Attendance

Maintain track of employee working hours/days, daily sign-in/sign-out. Manage holidays and leaves, apply and approve leaves and view customized reports.

Expenses

Keep a thorough check on employee expenses. Employees can record their expenses for reimbursements, which the managers can approve/reject. You may also choose to raise invoices and charge customers for employee expenses.

Timesheets

Timesheets are tools used to track the time spent by employees on a tasks/projects allotted to them. Managers can keep a track of their project costs by linking timesheet data to analytic accounts & hourly costs and accordingly invoice customers for expenses.

Hiring

The HRM module of OpenERP allows you to manage your hiring process from start till end. Incoming job queries can be managed by integrating your email with OpenERP in a way that each mail creates an entry in your hiring account and maintains the CV as an attachment. You can create various recruitment stages and choose to send reminders to applicant at each stage of the process.

Customer Relationship Managemen

Customer Relationship Management

OpenERP’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) module assists your organization in effectively managing interactions with clients and sales prospects. The system allows for complete tracking of sales activities right from the first phone call to closure of the opportunity and also facilitates comprehensive management of meetings, organization calendars and post sales activities such as helpdesk, support & bug tracking. With enhanced features such as compatibility with websites and mail clients, the system provides for automatic integration of all leads, thus ensuring that you don’t miss a single opportunity.

Leads

Managed leads by users, campaigns and sources and track them real-time till closure. Integrate with you website to move enquiries directly to your leads. You may choose to escalate the leads to your senior or qualify the same as a business opportunity.

Opportunities

Opportunities are the sales pipeline of your organization. You may track them state by stage till closure, add communication history, expected revenues & probability of their success. You can also schedule meetings & phone calls, send out reminders, create invoices and manage every aspect related to the opportunity.

Meetings

Schedule meetings with your prospects at the click of a button and share your calendar with the entire department. Record minutes of meeting and maintain history of your communication.

Phone Calls

Manage your call centre with OpenERP’s phone call management module. Track your incoming/outgoing calls, plan & schedule subsequent calls, provide deadlines and convert calls into leads.

Ater-Sales

Manage your after-sales by reporting/tracking bugs and ensuring their timely resolution; track client claims, helpdesk & support activities of your organization.

Administration

Create sections for cases, generate rules to be applied to various cases at each step, create stages for better tracking of leads/opportunities and provide access to menus based on employee roles.

Finance And Accounting

Finance & Accounting

The Finance & Accounting module of OpenERP provides vital insights that your enterprise needs to improve its financial performance. It empowers your organization to manage everyday accounting operations while simultaneously providing you with information to perform dynamic financial analysis. You can configure your financial accounts, taxes, perform periodical processing, generate chart of accounts, manage your invoices and generate complex reports for analysis.

Configuration

Set up your financial and analytical accounts using this menu. You can define financial years, periods, list of accounts and their types, various taxes and details pertaining to their applicability, payment terms, currencies and much more.

Receivables

Receivables are accounting documents related to (primarily) payments by customers towards invoices generated or refunds. Customer Invoices are generated automatically when Sales Orders are raised. However, OpenERP also provides you the facility to draft Pro-forma Customer Invoices, create them, send them for approval and approve/reject them accordingly. You may also choose to refund you customer invoices.

Payables

Payables are similar to Receivables, except for the fact that they are to do with suppliers and not customers. Accounting documents such as supplier invoices, refunds, payable vouchers are categorized under Payables. Supplier invoices are generated automatically by OpenERP on creation of Purchase Orders. However, the user also has the option to create these invoices and approve/reject/pay/refund them as in the case of a Customer Invoice.

Bank & Cash

OpenERP facilitates management of bank and cash statements by providing tools to manage your bank statements and cash registers. It also provides a data entry option that allows users to manually encoding entries.

Budgeting

The Finance & Accounting module of OpenERP includes a comprehensive budgeting tool that allows you to manage budgets with regard to both your financial and analytic accounts. You can allocate budgets for each of your departments and dynamically track them to know their positions. At any point of time, the tool gives you a real time view of your planned & practical amounts.

Periodical Processing

Periodical processing tab of the Finance & Accounts module allows users to perform financial functions that are carried out at regular intervals, such as annual closing activities.

The tool provides users with an ‘Entries to Review’ option wherein a user can tag entries for review at a later stage. The tool lists such entries in a central repository from where the user can view & review them as required.

Reconciliation is an important concept in OpenERP. To pay an invoice, the invoice entry needs to be reconciled with a counter entry. The automatic reconciliation tool searches for corresponding payments by partners and marks the invoices as paid, thus ensuring correctness in the entire process. Any manual entries, however, will have to be reconciled by searching for their counterparts.

OpenERP provides you the facility to create your financial periods. For instance, you can divide your financial year into two periods, which need to be closed at the end of the period. It provides you the facility to perform such end of period activities and close accounts, after which any entry into that period cannot be made.

OpenERP also allows you to periodically invoice your partners based on your timesheet entries. Further, it also provides the facility to create and manage recurring entries, which would be created automatically during the defined period.

Legal Statements

Legal documents such as profit & loss reports, balance sheets, general ledgers and account balance statements can be generated, which can be sent to your financial consultant for perusal. OpenERP also allows you to generate numerous financial reports using the Reporting function.