Developing a real case

Now that you’ve discovered some of the many possibilities of Open ERP from a tour of the demonstration database, you’ll develop a real case. An empty database provides the starting point for testing a classic workflow from product purchase to sale, completing your guided tour and your familiarization with Open ERP.

A database loaded with demonstration data is very useful for understanding Open ERP’s general capabilities. But to explore Open ERP through a lens of your own company’s needs you should start with an empty database. You’ll work in this chapter on a minimal database containing no demonstration data so that there is no confusion about what you created. And you’ll keep the database you’ve created so that you can build on it throughout the rest of this book if you want to.

You’ll develop a real case through the following phases:

1. Specify a real case.
2. Describe the functional needs.
3. Configure the system with the essential modules.
4. Carry out the necessary data loading.
5. Test the system with your database.

The case is deliberately extremely simple to provide you with a foundation for the more complex situations you’ll handle in reality. Throughout this chapter it’s assumed that you’re accessing Open ERP through its web interface. And it’s also assumed (as in the rest of this book) that you’re using the latest download of Open ERP version 5, the stable production version at the time of writing (not the trunk version, which is likely to have new and potentially unstable features).

• Use case
• Functional requirements
• Database creation
• Installing and configuring modules
• Database setup
  • Configuring Accounts
    • Account Types
    • Accounts
    • Properties
  • Configuring Journals
  • Configuring the Main Company
  • Creating partner categories, partners and their contacts
  • Creating products and their categories
  • Stock locations
  • Setting up a chart of accounts
  • Make a backup of the database
• Testing a Purchase-Sale workflow
  • Purchase Order
  • Receiving Goods
  • Control of purchase invoices
  • Paying the supplier
  • From Sales Proposal to Sales Order
  • Preparing goods for despatch to customers
  • Invoicing Goods
  • Customer Payment