How to Set Up Customer Credit Limits in Odoo 19

Short answer: in Odoo 19, tick Sales Credit Limit in Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings (in the Customer Invoices section), optionally with a Default Credit Limit, and give individual customers their own limit with Partner Limit on the contact’s Accounting tab. Odoo then adds what the customer owes, confirmed orders not yet invoiced and the current document, and shows a warning on quotations and draft invoices when the total goes over the limit. It’s a warning, not a block: nothing stops anyone confirming the order or posting the invoice.

For the wider picture of getting paid on time, start with my explainer on customer invoicing in Odoo.

Applies to

• Odoo version: Odoo 19. Neither the Odoo 19 nor the Odoo 20 documentation has a page on credit limits, so this guide is based on the Odoo 19 code of the Invoicing and Sales apps. In the Odoo 20 code the setting, fields and warning are the same, with one change: a sales order marked Manually Closed For Invoicing no longer counts towards the customer’s credit.
• Edition: Community and Enterprise. Payment follow-up levels and Studio approval rules, mentioned below, are Enterprise only.
• Apps: Invoicing or Accounting, plus Sales for the warning on quotations and for counting open orders.

Before you start

1. Decide the policy: a default limit for everyone or none, specific limits for key accounts, and who signs off exceptions.
2. Keep receivables clean. Match payments to invoices and reconcile the bank regularly. If your payment methods have no outstanding accounts, a registered payment only reduces what the customer owes once the bank transaction is reconciled.
3. Check access. Changing the setting needs administrator rights, and the credit fields on a contact are only visible to users with Invoicing access or higher.
4. Payment terms exist for the terms you give, under Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Payment Terms.

Step by step

1. Go to Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Settings, find Sales Credit Limit in the Customer Invoices section, tick it and save. The setting applies per company.
2. Optionally fill in Default Credit Limit, which appears once the box is ticked. It applies to every customer without a limit of its own. Leave it at 0 if only selected customers should have limits.
3. Open the customer from Accounting ‣ Customers ‣ Customers and go to the Accounting tab (labelled Invoicing in Community). Open the company itself, not one of its contact persons, which only link to the parent.
4. In the Credit Limits section you’ll see Total Receivable and Days Sales Outstanding (DSO). Tick Partner Limit and enter the limit in your company currency. Unticking it puts the customer back on the default.
5. On the Sales & Purchase tab, set the customer’s Payment Terms, so orders and invoices carry the agreed due dates.
6. For a hard stop (Enterprise, with Studio): open a sales order in Studio, select the Confirm button and click Add an approval step. Choose Approvers or an Approver Group, such as your credit controller, and use the filter icon to apply the step only to some orders, for example customers with a “Credit hold” tag that finance maintains. A filter can’t compare each customer’s running total with its own limit, so a fully automatic block needs a small custom module.
7. In Accounting (Enterprise), set up Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Follow-up Levels so overdue invoices are chased on a schedule. Collecting on time is what brings customers back under their limits.

How Odoo works out the total

With the setting on, Odoo adds three amounts for the customer’s company, converted to your company currency. All its addresses and contact persons count together.

• Total Receivable: posted customer invoices not yet paid, net of credit notes and any payments already recorded against the receivable.
• Confirmed sales orders not fully invoiced (with Sales installed): the value, including tax, of ordered quantities not yet on a posted invoice. Ordered quantities count whether or not they’ve been delivered, and orders in another currency are converted at today’s rate.
• The document you’re on: the quotation’s total, or the draft invoice’s total less any part already counted through its sales order.

The warning appears only when the sum is above the limit; reaching it exactly doesn’t trigger it. Other quotations, draft invoices and cancelled orders don’t count.

The warning is a yellow banner on quotations (draft or sent) and on draft customer invoices. Salespeople see it on quotations even though they can’t see the limit on the contact; on invoices only users with Invoicing rights see it. Once the order is confirmed, or the invoice posted, the banner is gone.

Worked example: a distributor with dealer limits

A Jalandhar distributor of sanitaryware sells to dealers on 30-day terms. Its rule: new dealers get ₹2,00,000 of credit, established dealers get more, and nobody confirms an over-limit order without the accounts manager’s say-so. Dealers who repeatedly pay late get a “Credit hold” tag, and in Enterprise a Studio approval step on Confirm enforces it.

• Settings: Sales Credit Limit on, Default Credit Limit ₹2,00,000.
• Sharma Sanitary Store: Partner Limit ₹5,00,000, Payment Terms 30 Days.

On Monday a salesperson prepares a quotation for Sharma worth ₹95,000 including GST. Odoo adds:

	Amount
Total Receivable (two unpaid invoices)	₹3,20,000
Confirmed order, half delivered, nothing invoiced yet	₹1,10,000
This quotation	₹95,000
Total	₹5,25,000

₹5,25,000 is above ₹5,00,000, so a banner on the quotation says Sharma Sanitary Store has reached its credit limit and shows the total due, including sales orders and this document. The salesperson checks with the accounts manager instead of confirming. Finance chases the older invoice, and once a ₹1,50,000 payment is recorded and matched, the total falls to ₹3,75,000, the banner disappears and the order goes ahead.

Who should be allowed to override

Because Odoo only warns, overriding is a decision about people rather than a setting:

• Who sets limits: keep Partner Limit with finance. Anyone with Invoicing access can change it, so don’t give that access to the sales team just so they can see credit.
• Who approves an over-limit order: one named role, such as the accounts manager, set as the approver.
• Leave a trail: note the reason for approving in the order’s chatter.
• Review limits on a cycle: look at Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and payment history each quarter, rather than raising limits one order at a time.

What you should see

• A Credit Limits section on each customer company’s Accounting tab, with Total Receivable, DSO and Partner Limit.
• A yellow banner on over-limit quotations and draft invoices, naming the limit and the total due.
• No banner once the total is at or below the limit, or once the order is confirmed.

Troubleshooting

No banner although the customer is over the limit. Check that Sales Credit Limit is on for this company, the customer’s limit isn’t 0, and the document is a quotation or a draft invoice. On invoices, users without Invoicing rights don’t see the banner.

The Credit Limits section is missing on the contact. The setting is off, your user lacks Invoicing rights, or you’ve opened a contact person rather than the company.

The total looks too high. Payments may not be matched with invoices yet. Or confirmed orders still hold quantities that will never be delivered or invoiced: they count until you reduce the quantity or cancel the order. In Odoo 20, marking an order Manually Closed For Invoicing also stops it counting.

Salespeople can change limits. They have Invoicing rights. Review their access in Settings ‣ Users & Companies ‣ Users.

Orders are confirmed over the limit. That’s standard behaviour: the warning doesn’t block. Add an approval step or a custom check.

Related setup

• How to set up your sales workflow in Odoo
• How to set up users and access rights in Odoo
• How to set up Studio in Odoo
• Online payments in India with Odoo, for taking payment upfront
• Slow invoicing hurting cash flow?
• Want credit control, approvals and follow-ups designed around how you actually sell? See Odoo implementation.

Official references

• Odoo 19 documentation: Payment terms and installment plans
• Odoo 19 documentation: Follow-up on invoices
• Odoo 19 documentation: Approval rules in Studio
• Odoo 19 source code: Invoicing (account) module and Sales (sale) module

How this guide was checked: the Odoo 19 and 20 documentation has no page on credit limits, so the setting, fields, calculation and warning were checked in the Odoo 19 source code of the account and sale modules, with the Odoo 20 code compared, in October 2026. Payment terms, follow-ups and approval rules were checked against the Odoo 19 documentation. The worked example is illustrative and wasn’t run on a live database, so there are no screenshots; labels can vary slightly with your installed apps and language.