Odoo Inventory Consultant, Australia

Interstate warehouses and stock on the road

When an Australian business opens a second or third warehouse, the hardest part is rarely the warehouse itself. It is the stock between them. A line-haul truck from Melbourne to Brisbane, or a rail container across the Nullarbor to Perth, can carry a large share of your inventory, and in many older systems that stock simply vanishes from one site and reappears days later at another.

In Odoo Inventory I put a transit location between sites. The sending warehouse ships into transit, the receiving warehouse receives out of it, and anything sitting in transit stays on the stock report and in the valuation. Resupply routes and reordering rules then use realistic lead times per lane, so the Perth site orders earlier than the Brisbane one.

GST is a national tax, so moving your own goods between warehouses in different states is not normally a GST event in itself. If your sites belong to different entities in a group, the position can change, so confirm with your accountant. For the wider choices about editions and hosting, see the Australian Odoo overview.

Consignment stock at mine sites and customer premises

A pattern I see more in Australia than in most markets is stock left at the customer's site. Suppliers of mining consumables, wear parts, safety equipment and industrial spares often keep a cage or container of their own inventory at a mine, processing plant or workshop, and invoice only when items are drawn. Medical and dental suppliers sometimes do the same with clinics.

Getting this right in Odoo matters, because consignment stock is still your asset until it is used. I set up each customer site as a location you own, replenished by transfers from your nearest warehouse, with a regular count or usage report from the customer that triggers the sale. Odoo then shows what sits at each site, what it is worth, and how quickly it turns.

The design questions are commercial as much as technical: who counts, how often, what happens to damaged or obsolete items, and when ownership passes. I put those into the requirements with your sales and finance teams before configuring anything, then test a full cycle from replenishment to usage invoice. Where remote sites have poor connectivity, I also plan how counts are captured offline and loaded later.

Odoo also has a separate consignment feature for the opposite case, where suppliers own stock in your warehouse; I check whether that applies to you too.

Containers, broker charges and landed cost in Australian dollars

Most Australian distributors I talk to import a large share of their range. A container brings charges from the supplier, the shipping line, the customs broker, the port and terminal, the transport company, and sometimes from biosecurity inspection, treatment or extra storage while goods are held. The supplier invoice is usually in US dollars or another currency, while the books are in Australian dollars.

Odoo's landed cost function adds these charges to a receipt and spreads them among the products by quantity, weight, volume or value. I confirm early that your edition supports it as you need. Then I agree allocation rules with finance: duty by customs value, freight by volume, inspection costs to the specific lines that were held where that is identifiable.

GST paid on imports is generally claimable for a registered business, and some importers use a deferral arrangement; either way it belongs in the tax accounts rather than in item cost, subject to your accountant's view. The exchange rate on the supplier bill, not the order, should drive stock value.

Because broker and transport invoices often arrive after goods are sold, I set a short weekly review of open containers. For the commercial side of importing, see my page for Australian trading businesses.

Stock valuation and the end of financial year stocktake

Odoo values stock by product category with standard, average or first in, first out costing, and can post inventory value continuously or leave it for periodic journals. The closing stock figure feeds your financial statements and tax return, so the method is your accountant's call, not a warehouse setting.

Tax and accounting advice is outside my role; what I bring is evidence. Using a test database, I run a container with landed costs, an interstate transfer, consignment usage at a customer site and a month of sales through each method, and walk your accountant through the resulting values and entries.

What Australian finance teams usually weigh:

• Average cost smooths currency and freight swings and is simple for sales staff quoting margins.
• First in, first out keeps the cost of each container visible, which helps when the Australian dollar moves between order and arrival.
• Standard cost suits manufacturers with established standards and a habit of reviewing variances.

I also plan the end of financial year stocktake with finance, including approval of count differences and the tie-out of the valuation report to the balance sheet. The ledger, GST and BAS side is covered on my page for Odoo Accounting in Australia.

Barcodes, carriers, retailer requirements and recall tracing

Odoo's mobile scanning tool is the Barcode app, used on rugged handhelds or ordinary phones, and I understand it to sit in Enterprise, so the edition is decided before devices are bought. If you supply major retailers, they typically expect standard product barcodes and may ask for specific carton labels, delivery booking and electronic documents. Those requirements vary by customer and change over time, so I collect them from each retailer during requirements rather than assuming.

Australian freight is a mix of national parcel networks, regional couriers and line-haul carriers. Odoo includes connectors for some large international carriers, mainly in Enterprise; local carriers are usually reached through a third-party connector, a freight management platform you already use, or API work. I compare those routes per carrier before any build.

For food and beverage, recall readiness is the core requirement. Therapeutic goods distributors have their own regulator's expectations. In both cases I configure lots and expiry dates on the lines that need them, set first expired, first out picking and block expired stock, then rehearse a recall: pick any lot, trace it to the customers who bought it, and time how long the list takes to produce. Serial numbers suit equipment with warranties or service histories.

Retail DCs, 3PLs and automation: going beyond Odoo Inventory

Odoo Inventory fits many Australian wholesalers, importers, online retailers and light manufacturers. Sometimes the honest answer is a purpose-built warehouse platform feeding Odoo, and these are the Australian situations where I raise it:

• Large retail distribution. Sites supplying supermarket and big-box networks at high volume often need advanced wave planning, labor management and dock scheduling.
• Third-party logistics. If you store goods for other businesses and bill by activity, you need software designed for that model.
• Automation. Conveyors, shuttles and goods-to-person systems need equipment-level control.
• Bulk and cold chain. Temperature-controlled or bulk storage with continuous monitoring may need specialist tools.

Before reaching that point, I check whether the real problem is process discipline at the dock rather than software, because a new system will not fix unscanned moves. Where a WMS is justified, I help define which records each system owns, write the integration specification and assess proposals without any vendor commission. Further reading: warehousing ERP, the Australian ERP consultant page and the ERP requirements gathering service.