How to Set Up Your Sales Workflow in Odoo: Quotation to Invoice
The sales flow, from a customer enquiry to a paid invoice, is the heartbeat of most businesses, and Odoo handles it as one connected process. Setting it up well makes selling smooth and makes sure nothing slips between the steps. To round off this series of practical Odoo how-to guides, here is the sales workflow.
It starts with a quotation
A sale usually begins as a quotation: the products, quantities and prices you propose to a customer. In Odoo you build a quotation, send it, and the customer can review and even accept it online. Getting your products and prices set up beforehand, as covered earlier in this series, is what makes creating quotations quick and accurate.
From quotation to sales order
When the customer accepts, the quotation becomes a confirmed sales order. This is the moment the sale is real: it can trigger delivery of goods and sets up the invoice. The neat part is that it is the same document evolving through stages, so nothing is re-entered; the quote you built simply becomes the order.
Delivery and stock
For physical goods, confirming the order can create a delivery, which draws on your warehouse and stock setup. This is where your earlier inventory setup pays off: the sale flows straight into a picking and reduces stock automatically. The sales side and the inventory side are one connected motion, not two separate jobs.
From order to invoice
Once the order is confirmed, and depending on your invoicing policy, you create the invoice from it. Because the invoice comes from the order, it carries the right products, quantities and prices without re-keying, and it posts to your accounts. Your chart of accounts and tax setup, done earlier, are what make the invoice land correctly in your books.
Set your invoicing policy
A key setting is whether you invoice for what was ordered or for what was actually delivered. This invoicing policy shapes the flow and should match how your business bills. Decide it deliberately per product or globally, so invoices reflect your real commercial practice rather than a default you never chose.
Practical tips
- Set up products and prices first so quotations are quick and accurate.
- Let quotations evolve into orders rather than re-entering anything.
- Connect confirmed orders to delivery so stock updates automatically.
- Create invoices from orders so they carry the right details into accounts.
- Choose an invoicing policy, ordered versus delivered, that matches how you bill.
My take
The sales workflow is where all the earlier setup, products, inventory, accounting, tax, comes together into one smooth flow from quote to cash. When it is set up well, a single document carries the sale from enquiry to invoice with nothing re-keyed and nothing lost. That is the whole promise of a connected system, and the sales flow is where a business feels it most directly.
This series has walked through setting up Odoo step by step, from your company basics through users, email, accounting, products, inventory and the sales flow. Each piece builds on the last, which is exactly how a good implementation goes. I will keep sharing practical guides like these from real projects over time.
Based on the official Odoo 19 send quotations documentation. Want your sales flow set up right? Get in touch.