Digitise invoices with Odoo
Digitising invoices means consistently recording incoming and outgoing invoices in an ERP system, checking and approving them in clear workflows, archiving them in an audit-proof document management system, and thus significantly reducing manual work, errors, time and process costs – while increasing efficiency and process reliability. Odoo ERP maps incoming and outgoing invoices end-to-end – from capture to archiving. For medium-sized companies, this is a clear efficiency lever.
What ‘digitising invoices’ means in everyday life
It is not simply a matter of generating PDFs instead of paper invoices, but rather of end-to-end processes: incoming invoices are automatically entered into the system, read, checked, approved, posted, paid and stored in an audit-proof manner. Outgoing invoices are generated from orders or projects, sent digitally to customers, paid online and, if necessary, automatically reminded. Every action is documented and every status is clear.
Why Odoo is useful for this
Odoo is a comprehensive open-source ERP software solution. This means that it helps companies centralise and automate all their business processes in a single system. Three components are particularly relevant for accounting:
- Odoo Accounting: Bookkeeping, taxes, invoices, payments, dunning.
- Odoo Documents: Centralised, structured storage and approvals.
- Odoo Approvals: Rule-based approvals.
You start small and expand as needed to include purchasing, sales, projects, warehousing or HR. This keeps the invoice process chain consistent – without media breaks.
Digitise incoming invoices with Odoo
DATEV is one of the best-known accounting and tax consulting programmes and is particularly widespread in Germany. The software enables seamless documentation and effortless communication between companies, tax consultants and tax offices. The programme enables efficient processing of tax returns, Payroll and Controlling.
Why Odoo and DATEV belong together
This is how a clean process for supplier invoices works in Odoo:
Invoice receipt without detours
Digital invoice receipt can be organised in different ways depending on your needs:
- Email alias: Suppliers send invoices directly to a defined email address. Odoo automatically creates the documents.
- Upload/scan: Paper documents are scanned collectively. OCR reads the data.
Electronic - data exchange: If suppliers can deliver structured data via EDI/UBL interface, you save on OCR and gain even more precision.
- Vendor portal: A standardised channel is worthwhile for recurring partners.
Odoo extracts core fields such as supplier, date, amounts, tax, IBAN, payment terms and reference using OCR (Optical Character Recognition). You only check and correct what is incorrect. The better the template, the higher the hit rate.
In addition, incoming e-invoices can be automatically imported, checked and posted in Odoo. Relevant data such as invoice number, amounts, taxes and payment terms are read directly and transferred to the system. This significantly reduces the manual entry effort, minimises sources of error and ensures significantly higher data quality.
Approval and payment of incoming invoices
An automated approval process is essential for processing invoices efficiently and securely. Ideally, this begins with a two- or three-way comparison, in which the incoming invoice is compared with the original order and, optionally, with the goods receipt. Only invoices that match the order data are automatically released for payment. In the event of discrepancies, an exception is generated, which must be clarified manually by the responsible employees.
The subsequent approval of invoices is carried out according to defined rules and thresholds. For example, the team leader could approve invoices up to £500, while invoices up to £5,000 require the approval of the division manager. Amounts above this require the approval of the finance manager. To ensure a seamless process chain, it is important to also define rules for substitutes and holidays.
Once invoices have been approved, they are bundled into SEPA payment runs, which makes payment processing more efficient. Automated bank reconciliation ensures that the accounts are always up to date. This effectively reduces duplicate and late payments.
All relevant documents and information, such as invoices, comments, approvals and versions, are collected in an audit-proof digital document file. This ensures seamless and transparent documentation for any audits.
Digitise outgoing invoices with Odoo
With Odoo, you can digitise and automate your invoicing from start to finish, significantly increasing speed and consistency.
Invoicing from orders: Prices, discounts and taxes are taken directly from the sale. This makes manual errors a thing of the past.
Project and time billing: Odoo pulls billing information such as working hours, milestones or flat rates directly from the project data.
- Automatic subscription management: Recurring invoices for subscriptions or maintenance contracts are automatically generated at specified intervals.
- Digital delivery: You can easily send invoices by email. Your customers receive a link to a customer portal where they can view outstanding invoices and pay them directly.
- Online payments: By integrating suitable payment methods (e.g. SEPA direct debit, credit card), you can speed up payment receipt.
- Automated dunning: The system automatically manages dunning levels, deadlines and fees. Odoo creates the dunning letters and documents their dispatch.
- eInvoicing: Odoo supports the creation of electronic invoices in a variety of international formats. Depending on the country and legal requirements, you can flexibly activate and use these formats.
Ensure GoBD compliance with Odoo
In Germany, your business processes must comply with the principles of proper management and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form, as well as data access (GoBD). This means:
- Immutability: Changes to documents must be traceably logged and documented.
- Traceability: There must be a complete audit trail – from the receipt to the booking to the payment.
- Completeness: All business transactions must be recorded without gaps or duplications.
- Storage: Electronic documents must be stored for ten years in a structured, readable format.
Odoo provides the technical basis for these requirements, such as audit-proof storage with logs, clear role permissions and approval processes.
However, it is crucial that you, as a company, supplement GoBD compliance with organisational measures. These include the creation of procedural documentation, the definition of a rights concept and the establishment of deletion rules. GoBD compliance is therefore not just an IT task, but an important part of your internal control systems.
E-invoicing: XRechnung, ZUGFeRD and others
An e-invoice within the meaning of the law is an invoice that complies with the European standard EN 16931. In Germany, this includes the formats XRechnung and Factur-X (CII) / ZUGFeRD (from version 2.0.1 onwards). Simple PDF invoices are not considered e-invoices unless the invoice recipient agrees. Since 1 January 2025, all domestic companies have been required to be able to receive and process e-invoices. However, there are important transition periods and exceptions:
The obligation to send e-invoices yourself is being introduced gradually:
- Until 31 December 2026: Companies may continue to send paper invoices in B2B transactions and, with the customer’s consent, electronic invoices in other formats (e.g. PDF).
- Until 31 December 2027: Companies with a previous year’s turnover of up to €800,000 may continue to send paper invoices and other electronic formats. Companies with a higher turnover must send e-invoices from 1 January 2027.
- From 1 January 2028: The obligation to send e-invoices applies to all companies in the B2B sector.
Odoo supports e-invoicing standards such as XRechnung and Factur-X (CII) through special localisation modules. It is therefore important that you clarify early on what your customers need in order to make the appropriate settings and ensure smooth data exchange.
Proper setup is crucial for electronic invoicing via networks such as PEPPOL. Define clear responsibilities and test the process first with selected pilot customers to ensure a smooth transition.
Common concerns – our answers
Integration and complexity
The fear of complex systems is understandable. Our recommendation: plan your master data, access rights and workflows carefully in advance. Test the new process with a few pilot documents before rolling it out across the entire company. This will minimise friction points and ensure a smooth start. As experienced Odoo accounting specialists, we are happy to support you with the integration and configuration of your Odoo accounting. Get in touch with us.
Security and data exchange
Security is a top priority. Odoo offers a high level of traceability through clear role concepts, detailed logs and approval processes. In addition, defined interfaces to systems such as online banking or DATEV are used to make data exchange secure and transparent.
Adaptability
Odoo was developed to adapt to the needs of German SMEs. Approval rules, two- or three-way reconciliation and special localisations cover typical requirements and enable you to design your processes flexibly.
Economic Efficiency
To measure the success of digitisation, you should focus on specific key figures. For example, check the throughput time of invoices, the cash discount rate and the first-pass rate. By transparently comparing the situation before and after implementation, you can highlight the economic benefits.
Possible key figures include:
- Processing time for incoming invoices: receipt to payment (target: significant reduction).
- Degree of automation: proportion of invoices without manual correction.
- First-pass rate: invoices that go through without query.
- Cost per invoice: internal + external, comparable before/after.
- Cash discount utilisation: rate and absolute cash discount volume.
- DSO (accounts receivable): days to payment receipt for outgoing invoices.
- Dunning rate: proportion of overdue invoices.
Data quality – the silent main task
Digitising invoices can only be achieved with a clean data master. Without a clean database, you will not achieve the promised benefits such as automation and efficiency. Therefore, take the time to maintain the following areas:
- Supplier data: Check and complete all important information such as VAT identification number, IBAN, payment terms, currency and contact person.
- List of items and services: Ensure that your items and services have uniform names, including the correct account assignment and the appropriate tax codes.
- Chart of accounts and taxes: Ensure that your localisation is correct and that accounts and tax rates are checked and up to date.
- Cost centres and cost units: Define these clearly and ensure that they are used consistently throughout the company.
Every hour you invest in maintaining your master data will save you many hours later on in day-to-day operations. It is one of the most important tasks for exploiting the full potential of digitalisation, regardless of whether you work with Odoo or another solution.
Interfaces that are worthwhile in Odoo ERP
Odoo’s greatest strength is the seamless integration of all modules. This eliminates classic interface problems, as data flows centrally and without media breaks. This ensures greater efficiency and better data quality.
- Banking: The Odoo finance module offers automatic account turnover import and intelligent bank reconciliation, which simplifies the allocation of payments using rules. SEPA payments can be created and executed directly from the system.
- Purchasing & inventory management: The 3-way reconciliation is a core function of Odoo. It works smoothly because goods receipts are recorded directly in the inventory module, making the data available for reconciliation with the order and the incoming invoice.
- CRM & sales: The data from your sales process flows directly into invoicing. A clean sales pipeline in the CRM module thus automatically forms the basis for correct outgoing invoices.
Projects & Time Tracking: Working hours and services rendered, which are recorded in the project module, can be converted into invoices with just a few clicks. This eliminates manual errors and speeds up billing.
Security and permissions
A clear distribution of tasks is the key to secure and traceable processes. Assign specific roles with clear responsibilities to employees:
- Entry: Employees can create documents but not approve them.
- Technical review: Responsible for factual accuracy and correct account assignment.
- Approval: Grants budget and amount approval.
- Payment: Creates and approves payment runs according to the dual control principle.
- Revision: Has read access to all documents for auditing purposes, but without modification rights.
With Odoo’s integrated protocols and logs, every step can be traced seamlessly.
Digitise invoices and take your organisation with you
The transition to digital processes is less of a technical challenge and more of an organisational one. Focus on short, practical training courses and clear guidelines. It is important that you work consistently and avoid ‘shadow processes’ such as approvals by email. Communicate clear rules, for example:
- Where invoices are received.
- Who checks what.
- When payments are made.
- How archiving is carried out.
These rules should be concise, binding and visible to everyone.
What makes Odoo convenient in detail
Odoo automates many manual steps and ensures greater efficiency:
- Rules instead of manual work: Tax logic, standard accounts and payment terms run automatically in the background.
- Reusable templates: Standardised documents reduce errors and make it easier to train new colleagues.
- Centralised search: You can find any invoice in seconds using the number, supplier, amount or any keyword.
- Mobile usability: Approvals can also be given on the go. This speeds up the process and prevents delays in month-end closing.
- Audit trails: Every change is logged. This takes the pressure off you during external audits.
Knowing the limits
- OCR is good, but not perfect. Allow some time for manual corrections, especially at the beginning.
- E-invoice standards such as XRechnung or ZUGFeRD are country-specific. Check your customers’ requirements and set up Odoo accordingly.
- Without disciplined filing, quality suffers. The system keeps things tidy if you set clear rules.
Assessing cost effects realistically
Digitising invoices significantly reduces process costs. Depending on the initial situation and discipline, a 30–60% reduction in processing time per incoming invoice is realistic. In addition, the use of discounts increases measurably, queries decrease and monthly closings become more reliable. Conservatively estimated, the costs for licences, setup and training often pay for themselves within 6 to 12 months. We recommend calculating these effects based on your own volumes and hourly rates.
Conclusion: Efficiency, transparency and security with Odoo
Digitising accounting with Odoo is a crucial step for any medium-sized company that wants to future-proof its processes. Odoo provides the necessary platform to automate incoming and outgoing invoices end-to-end, from capture to archiving. The result is not only significantly lower process costs and higher cash discount utilisation, but also improved data quality, transparent approval processes and compliance with legal requirements such as GoBD and e-invoicing obligations. The return on investment is usually noticeable within a short period of time. The key to success is a well-thought-out implementation in which technical possibilities and organisational processes go hand in hand.
Are you ready to revolutionise your invoice processing and fully exploit the potential of digitalisation? Contact us to plan the next step together!
