Odoo Project Management: A Guide to Features, Workflows and Business Costs

When project details sit across spreadsheets, emails and chat messages, keeping delivery on track takes extra effort. Odoo Project Management brings that work into a shared system, helping businesses connect daily execution with the commitments made to customers.

What Is Odoo Project Management?

Odoo Project Management is the project and task management app within Odoo’s ERP platform. It gives teams a workspace to organise assignments, coordinate delivery and monitor ongoing work across customer projects and internal initiatives.

The Odoo Project Management module serves businesses such as consultancies, IT providers and creative agencies that organise work around deliverables. Its connection with other Odoo apps allows project records to support broader business processes, including sales, resource planning and invoicing.

Key Features of Odoo Project Management

The following capabilities cover the main areas of project delivery in Odoo 19. Features involving other applications depend on the apps installed and the project’s configuration.

Task Assignment, Stages and Subtasks

Tasks capture the work to be completed, with assignees, deadlines, priorities and descriptions. Subtasks divide larger deliverables into smaller assignments, making individual responsibilities easier to follow.

Task stages represent workflow steps, such as Drafting or Client Review. Task statuses indicate the task’s current condition, such as Changes Requested or Approved. Keeping these distinct helps teams recognise work that needs attention within each stage.

Visual Planning, Dependencies and Milestones

Kanban boards show work by stage, Gantt charts place tasks on a timeline, and Calendar and List views support date-based scheduling and detailed reviews.

Dependencies identify work that relies on another task, while milestones mark significant delivery checkpoints. For example, a website project might separate design approval, development completion and launch readiness into distinct milestones. This makes sequencing and key deadlines easier to assess.

Team Collaboration and Customer Access

Odoo’s Chatter keeps messages, internal notes and attachments alongside the relevant task. Colleagues can use mentions to request input, preserving the discussion where the work happens.

Through the customer portal, external users can access shared tasks and communicate with the team. Visibility and editing permissions determine what each participant can access, helping businesses involve clients while controlling exposure to internal information.

Timesheets and Time Tracking

With Odoo Timesheets enabled, employees record working time against projects and tasks. Managers can review entries by employee or assignment and compare recorded hours with the time allocated to the work.

For service teams, this makes unexpected effort easier to investigate. A task taking longer than estimated may indicate additional revisions, unclear requirements or an unrealistic estimate. Reviewing these differences helps teams improve estimates for similar work.

Project Reporting and Profitability

The project dashboard brings together delivery information, including task completion, milestones and linked operational records. Project updates capture a dated assessment of progress, allowing managers to document risks and compare the situation across review periods.

For billable projects, profitability reporting compares revenue with associated costs, such as employee time, expenses and purchases. Relevant records must be linked to the project and its analytic account so that the financial view reflects the work being assessed.

Project Templates and Workflow Automation

Project templates preserve a reusable structure of tasks, subtasks and settings for similar engagements. A consultancy, for example, can standardise its onboarding activities while adjusting each new project to the client’s scope.

Recurring tasks support repeat work, while configured automation rules can assign tasks, send notifications or schedule follow-ups. Creating custom rules through the task-stage Automations menu activates Odoo Studio and may require a subscription upgrade.

How to Use Odoo Project Management: From Setup to Invoicing

Start with the customer agreement and select the appropriate billing policy: fixed-price, hourly or milestone-based. The example below follows a consulting engagement billed by milestone, connecting Odoo Sales, Project and Invoicing, with Timesheets recording delivery effort.

1. Configure the service and billing policy

In Sales → Products, create a Service product, set its price and choose Based on Milestones as the invoicing policy. Configure Create on Order to generate a project or project and task. Enable milestones on a project beforehand so the billing option is available.

2. Confirm the quotation and open the project

Add the service to a customer quotation. Once the agreement is accepted, confirm it as a sales order; Odoo creates the project according to the product configuration. Check the linked customer and sales order before assigning work.

3. Set delivery responsibilities and checkpoints

Break the engagement into tasks, assign owners and set deadlines. Define milestones such as assessment, solution delivery and final handover, then link the relevant tasks. For milestone billing, check each milestone’s sales order item and delivery percentage so the amounts match the agreed payment schedule.

4. Record work and verify completion

Team members update their tasks and enter working hours where Timesheets is enabled. Odoo can automatically mark a milestone as reached when all linked tasks are Done or Canceled. Before invoicing, the project manager should verify that the agreed deliverables have been accepted and any cancelled work has been accounted for.

5. Create and review the invoice

Return to the sales order and verify the updated Delivered quantity. Select Create Invoice, review the draft’s amounts, taxes and payment terms, then confirm and send it. Reaching a milestone makes the corresponding amount available for invoicing; it does not automatically issue an invoice.

For hourly engagements, use a service configured for timesheet-based invoicing instead. The billable quantity then follows recorded time linked to the relevant sales order item.

Odoo Project Management Pricing and Implementation Costs

Odoo Project Management pricing depends on the subscription plan and deployment requirements. Standard and Custom include Project within an all-app subscription, charged per paying user.

Implementation services, Odoo.sh hosting and custom-code maintenance are separate from the subscription. Check the current Odoo pricing for the applicable market, billing term, introductory discount and renewal rate.

For a practical implementation budget, request separate estimates for:

• Configuration and migration: workflows, permissions and existing project data.
• Integration and customisation: connections or requirements beyond standard functionality.
• Training and partner support: user onboarding, workflow assistance and agreed enhancements beyond the support included in the Odoo subscription.

Separating one-time setup costs from recurring charges makes proposals easier to compare against the same scope.

Implement Odoo Project Management with A1 Consulting

A successful rollout starts with a shared understanding of how your business delivers work. A1 Consulting, an Odoo Enterprise-only partner in Malaysia, helps businesses align system configuration with operational requirements, supported by training and assistance after go-live.

For Odoo Project Management, that means defining clear handovers, reporting responsibilities and billing requirements before deciding what to configure or customise. Our consultants use Odoo implementation methodology to work with your team on a scope that supports daily operations and future improvements.

Discuss your project management requirements with A1 Consulting. Share your current workflow, team size and delivery challenges to start the conversation.

FAQs About Odoo Project Management

What Should You Consider Before Using Odoo Project Management?

Check how closely your delivery process fits the standard application. Test a representative project to identify any gaps in approval requirements, resource scheduling or reporting before committing to custom development.

Also establish who maintains project data and how consistently employees will record progress and working time. These responsibilities affect the usefulness of management reports.

Where Can You Find Odoo Project Management Documentation and Tutorials?

The Odoo Project Management documentation for version 19 provides written guidance on project configuration and task management. For video lessons, the Project and Timesheets tutorials cover practical workflows, including task creation, time recording and invoicing.

Choose documentation matching your installed version and practise in a test database. Working through one sample project makes it easier to relate the instructions to your team’s responsibilities.

Sally N.

BDM - Partner and Alliance

With over 7 years of experience in ERP advisory, Sally has worked closely with SMEs across Malaysia to streamline operations and drive digital transformation. Her deep understanding of business processes and hands-on approach have made her a trusted advisor to many growing companies. Through this blog post, Sally aims to share practical insights and real-world lessons drawn from her implementation experience, offering guidance to businesses navigating their own ERP journey.