Glossary

The recipe for a manufactured product: which components and quantities go into making one unit.

A multi-level BOM contains sub-assemblies that have BOMs of their own. How many levels deep yours goes is one of the better predictors of how complex a manufacturing implementation will be.

The complete list of accounts your bookkeeping posts to, such as bank, accounts receivable, sales revenue, and each expense category.

The Canadian localization installs one structured for Canadian standards, grouped into seven categories with numeric prefixes on the journal codes.

The message and activity thread attached to the bottom of every record in Odoo.

Underrated. Having the discussion, the approval, and the emailed PDF attached to the invoice itself is what removes the email archaeology that surrounds most legacy systems.

The free, open-source version of Odoo, published under LGPLv3, which you can download and self-host with no licence fee.

A meaningful set of apps sits outside it, including the full Accounting app, Field Service, Helpdesk, Studio and Payroll.

The standardized file format Canadian banks use to process batched electronic funds transfers.

In Odoo it needs the separate l10n_ca_payment_cpa005 module, plus a destination data centre ID and originator ID issued by your bank.

The paid Odoo subscription, which adds apps that are not in the open-source repository, plus hosting and support.

A rule that automatically swaps one tax or account for another based on who you are transacting with and where.

This is the mechanism that makes Canadian provincial tax work. Odoo's documentation states that the province where delivery occurs is what determines the tax.

A single bookkeeping transaction: which accounts were debited and credited, for how much, on what date.

Because Canadian payroll has no Odoo localization, most Canadian companies bring payroll into Odoo as a summarized journal entry from their payroll provider.

The extra costs of getting goods to your door, such as freight, duty, brokerage and insurance, applied onto the value of the received inventory.

For Canadian importers this is the difference between a margin report that means something and one that quietly understates cost on every cross-border receipt.

A lead is an unqualified enquiry. An opportunity is a qualified deal in a sales pipeline with a stage, a value, and an expected close date.

Leads are an optional stage in Odoo CRM. Turning them on changes the shape of your pipeline reporting, so it is a decision to make before migrating data.

A country-specific package of accounting rules, taxes, chart of accounts, and statutory reports.

Odoo has a Canadian fiscal localization. It has no Canadian payroll localization, and those are two separate things.

Traceability identifiers on stock. A lot covers a batch produced or received together; a serial number identifies a single unit.

Required in food, pharmaceutical, and regulated manufacturing. Adding traceability after go-live is far more work than starting with it.

The unit of functionality in Odoo. Each app is one or more modules, each with a technical name such as account or stock.

Technical module names are how you can tell definitively whether something is in the open-source edition, which is the method used on the editions page here.

Running more than one legal entity in a single Odoo database, with shared master data and separated books.

Common for Canadian groups with an operating company and a holding company. It is included on the Custom plan rather than Standard.

Odoo's managed hosting platform for databases that need custom code, with staging branches and deployment tooling.

It carries a hosting fee on top of the per-user subscription, and it requires the Custom plan.

Running Odoo on your own servers or your own cloud account rather than on Odoo's hosting.

Relevant where data residency matters. Note that SaaS intermediate versions never ship for on-premise, so the starting version constrains this.

The rule that determines which jurisdiction's sales tax applies to a transaction.

In Canada this drives which of GST, HST, PST or QST is charged. Odoo's documentation points at the province where delivery occurs. Whether a specific supply is taxable, zero-rated, or exempt is a question for a CPA.

A minimum and maximum stock level that triggers automatic replenishment when quantity on hand falls below the minimum.

An intermediate Odoo release published every two to three months, available only on Odoo Online.

These are not eligible for extended support and never ship for Odoo.sh or on-premise, which is why the starting version matters more than it first appears.

Odoo's in-browser customization tool for adding fields, editing views, building automations, and changing report layouts without code.

It requires the Custom plan and is absent from the open-source edition. It is also the easiest way to accumulate changes nobody wrote down.

Checking the purchase order, the goods receipt, and the vendor bill against each other before paying.

The standard control for stopping payment on goods that never arrived or were billed at the wrong price.

A machine, station, or team that performs one step of a manufacturing routing, with its own capacity and cost.

Work centres and routings come from the mrp_workorder module, which is not in the open-source edition. For a job shop that single fact reshapes the licensing decision.