Document management in Odoo
A document system that sits inside your business, not beside it
Contracts, incoming invoices, employee files and project documentation in one place - in the same system where the work happens, so every document sits next to the record it concerns.
Show me how our documents would flow
Where documents get lost today
Four patterns we meet in almost every company before a document system is introduced.
Scattered across three places
Part of it in e-mail, part on a shared drive, part in someone’s personal folder. Nobody knows the whole picture.
Which version is current?
Copies named final, final2 and really-final, and no way to tell which one was sent to the customer.
Half a day to find a contract
A document from two years ago exists somewhere, but nobody remembers under which name it was filed.
Approvals lost in e-mail
A signature or an approval travels as an attachment through a thread, and the trail disappears with it.
A shared folder against a document system
The comparison is about where a document lives and what it is connected to, not about storage space.
| Area | Shared drive and e-mail | Odoo Documents |
|---|---|---|
| Where the document lives | separate from the business record | next to the invoice, employee or task it concerns |
| Versions | copies with names as version control | version history on a single document |
| Access rights | set per folder, by whoever created it | per workspace and per role |
| Incoming supplier invoice | retyped by hand | data read from the scan, the entry prepared for confirmation |
| Signature | print, sign, scan, send back | electronic signature, signed copy filed automatically |
| Approval | an e-mail thread | an approval request with its history on the document |
| Sharing with a customer | attachment by e-mail | a folder published on the website |
| Finding it later | searching a drive by file name | tags, filters and workspaces |
Connected to the processes that create the documents
The document system is worth the most where documents are actually born. In Odoo these connections already exist.
Accounting
Supplier invoices arrive in the document inbox, Odoo reads the data from the scan and prepares the entry for confirmation.
Human resources
Employment documents, time off records, expense receipts and applicants’ CVs sit on the employee record.
Projects
Documents are attached to tasks, and a new project starts from a prepared workspace template.
Electronic signature
A document is sent for signing online and the signed copy is filed by itself.
Approvals
An approval request is raised straight from a document and its history stays with it.
Products
Technical and product documentation is kept with the product it describes.
Sharing
A folder can be published on the website for customers or partners, without e-mail attachments.
Spreadsheets and reports
Data from documents feeds spreadsheets and dashboards.
How long do you have to keep business documentation?
Retention deadlines are prescribed
Different rules apply to different document types, and a company has to set the periods in its own internal act.
The deadline travels with the document
In a document system the retention date is a property of the document, not something kept in somebody’s head.
We wrote about the deadlines
Our article goes through which documentation is kept for how long under Slovenian rules.
How a document system is introduced
- 1 We go through which documents you handle, who creates them and where they end up today.
- 2 We set up workspaces and access rights by department and role.
- 3 We add rules that file incoming documents automatically.
- 4 We connect the system to accounting, human resources, projects and signing.
- 5 We hand it over with training, and your people keep working where they already work.
Where would you start?
Tell us which documents cost you the most time and we will show you how they would flow through Odoo.
Let’s talk