Odoo CE: Automatic Inventory Valuation

What is Odoo Automatic Inventory Valuation?

Automatic Inventory Valuation in Odoo allows stock movements (such as receipts, deliveries, and internal transfers) to automatically generate corresponding accounting journal entries. This ensures that your inventory valuation is always accurate and reflects in your financial reports in real-time.

Previously, this feature was restricted to the Odoo Enterprise Edition. However, starting with Odoo 17, the Community Edition now supports automatic valuation technically — although it still lacks the full UI to enable it directly. With some manual setup, you can fully use this feature without paying for Enterprise.

📖 Read more in the official Odoo documentation:

Inventory Valuation Configuration — Odoo 17.0 Docs

How to Enable Automatic Inventory Valuation in Odoo Community

Since the interface to toggle this feature is hidden in Community, you must manually enable the required groups and permissions.

Step-by-step Instructions

1. Activate Stock Accounting Automatic for the user:

• Navigate to:
  Settings > Users & Companies > Users
• Select a user (e.g., admin).
• Under the Technical tab, manually enable the group:
  Stock Accounting Automatic

2. Show Accounting Features in Inventory Settings:

• Navigate to:
  Settings > Users & Companies > Groups
• Search for:
  "Show Accounting Features - Readonly"
• Add the previously selected user to this group.

3. Configure Product Category for Automated Valuation:

• Navigate to:
  Inventory > Configuration > Product Categories
• Select or create a product category.
• Under the Inventory Valuation section:
  • Set Inventory Valuation to: Automated
  • Set Costing Method: Standard, FIFO, etc.
  • Choose the appropriate:
    • Inventory Valuation Account
    • Stock Input/Output Accounts
    • Inventory Journal

Conclusion

With a few manual steps, Odoo Community Edition can now support automatic inventory valuation — a significant feature for accurate, real-time stock accounting. This makes Odoo Community much more powerful for SMEs that require integrated inventory and accounting without paying for Enterprise Edition.