What's new in Odoo 20: what really changes, module by module

Where does Odoo 20 stand on support?

The publisher maintains the three latest major versions: Odoo 20, Odoo 19 and Odoo 18. Odoo 17 left support when Odoo 20 arrived. For an Odoo 17 database, what happens next depends on the hosting: on Odoo.sh, the platform requires a supported version and the migration is a must; on a dedicated server, the database keeps running without new security fixes, with a risk that depends on how exposed the instance is and on how sensitive the data is. In both cases, we advise planning the migration rather than having it forced on you.

Artificial intelligence: agents that act inside the software

Artificial intelligence, introduced with Odoo 19, becomes a project in its own right in Odoo 20, carried by more than fifty modules on the Enterprise side. All AI features now consume credits bought through IAP.

• Agents create and update records on request, including from an instruction file uploaded as a PDF and ask questions you answer with buttons.
• They can be triggered by automated or scheduled actions and their conversations are kept for thirty days. An agent that reaches its tool call limit asks for confirmation before continuing.
• Voice interaction, image generation for the website and mailings, questions asked about a file while previewing it, manual reprocessing of sources.
• Choosing the provider is enough: Odoo automatically selects the model suited to the task. The database can be connected to external tools via the MCP protocol.
• The "topics" that defined an agent's behaviour are now called "skills".

Purchase

On the purchasing side, tracking vendor orders becomes more reliable and more complete, from the request for quotation to invoicing.

• A new wizard calculates precisely what has been received but not yet billed and what has been billed but not yet received, line by line: a real time saver at month end for closing purchases.
• A promised delivery date, frozen when the order is confirmed, allows a reliable vendor on-time rate: postponing a late date no longer distorts the statistic. If the order could not be confirmed before the deadline, arrival dates are recalculated in one click.
• A default Incoterm is set on the vendor form and carried over to all its orders. Blanket orders accept sections and notes and order sections display their totals.
• Purchase orders display tax-excluded or tax-included, like sales quotations.
• Comparing several vendor offers remains possible, but the mechanism changes: it is no longer reserved for blanket orders, it is an independent setting ("Purchase Alternatives") whose comparison screen is simplified.
• Vendor bill lines are predicted from history and label and a vendor's quality rate appears on its form, calculated from checks performed on receipt.

Projects

Project management evolves in depth, with a fundamental change on field service, which migrates to another application.

• Project sharing is rethought: external collaborators are separated from followers, portal access levels are renamed and clearer (View / Edit / Edit advanced) and tasks can be assigned to portal users. The portal shows the changes recorded in a task's chatter.
• A project can be created directly from a CRM opportunity, each project role is assigned members and the task schedule prints from the Gantt view.
• The project form is redesigned: a built-in map locates the customer. The profitability report built into the dashboard gives way to dedicated reports: budget, actual and projected margins.
• A new assistant can track an employee's office activity (emails, calls, meetings) to suggest timesheet lines the employee validates in one click: a real data-entry saver, but a point to address on the privacy side before any rollout.
• Field Service is no longer part of the Project app: the app is discontinued and its features now rely on Planning (see below). Any company using field service will need to review its organisation and retrain its teams.

Human resources

Human resources gain rigour, notably on working time tracking and hardware integrations, with two points of attention for French companies.

• An employee's departure becomes a real process tracked over time (notice period, then effective departure date), rather than a single click that archived everything immediately.
• The org chart and remote work (a default location for each day of the week, with exceptions) are built into the Employees app: the separate modules disappear. In a multi-company database, all users see the employees of all companies.
• A salary simulation can be run from the employee form, including net to gross and variable working schedules are entered from the calendar.
• Clocking in can require manager validation before being recorded (automatic, manual or only beyond a tolerance), take a photo when the employee badges and be limited to a single check-in per day. Biometric or RFID readers (eSSL, Mantra) connect directly to the Attendances app.
• A wizard proposes the list of legal public holidays for the year, country by country and another generates salary attachments for several employees at once.
• Expenses can be capped per job position, printed in a consolidated report and generate draft vendor bills: the "Employee Expenses" menu disappears.
• Payroll gets a step-by-step pay run workflow, salary indexation by percentage or amount, a choice of when payslips are sent and salary rules shared across structures. Work entries and the Planning-Payroll integration disappear: work entry types and time off types merge.
• Warning: the French payroll modules are not present in the Odoo 20 Enterprise sources we analysed. A point to check before any migration if your business depends on it.

Accounting and invoicing

Accounting is one of the most enriched areas of this release, with several welcome automations for accountants and accounting firms alike.

• Each invoice can display its amount tax-excluded or tax-included as you choose, independently of the company's general setting. Partially recoverable VAT, for example on a mixed-use vehicle, is handled line by line on the invoice.
• The chart of accounts gains a true hierarchy of parent and child accounts, replacing account groups, displayed as a readable path (for example "Expenses / Purchases / Goods").
• The accounting dashboard shows new key indicators and its main chart moves to a monthly view over twelve rolling months.
• Bank reconciliation can run automatically for a good share of transactions, be retriggered on demand and be split across several accounts; a summary report separates reconciled from unreconciled.
• Payment statuses become intuitive: "In Process" becomes "Paid" and "Paid" becomes "Reconciled". Double payments are detected and deducted automatically; vendor bills can be paid from Odoo through a PISP banking interface, with a single signature.
• Fixed assets rely on reusable depreciation models, with rates and decimal numbers accepted and a true fixed asset ledger.
• Reminders for unpaid invoices are gathered in a single settings screen, manual or automatic, with a one-click bulk send from the invoice list.
• Invoice lines can be split, vendor bill lines are predicted from history, attachments download in bulk and invoice-to-order matching rules accept a tolerance.
• A company not subject to VAT (micro-business, non-profit) can declare it in the settings, which hides irrelevant sales taxes. Checking an intra-community VAT number with the European VIES service can be automatic.
• For accounting firms managing several client files, a mechanism lets the lead accountant review any entry made by a colleague with limited rights. The cash journal can be secured by entry hashing.
• Stock valuation can be kept without the Inventory app and accrual entries are generated directly from the closing report.
• For France: annual report templates compliant with the general chart of accounts and automatic detection of the e-invoicing access point from the SIREN, with prefilled information.
• Electronic signature gains a paid option for a signature with reinforced legal value, equivalent to a handwritten signature in the European Union.
• Warning: two points need case-by-case checking before any migration: the Belgian accounting import (Winbooks) disappears with no replacement and the VAT closing accounts leave the standard (Community) edition, a successor exists, but only in the Enterprise edition.

Point of sale (POS)

The point of sale adapts to all retailers, not only restaurants, with more autonomy on hardware and fewer prerequisites.

• The till works with simplified inventory management, without installing the Inventory app: a single on-hand quantity per product and no mandatory transfers.
• Several currencies can be accepted at checkout in the same point of sale and a service fee can be added to orders through presets.
• The tip can be adjusted after checkout, with three suggested percentages adjustable per outlet, for all points of sale and no longer only restaurants.
• Several printers can be attached to the same point of sale with printer selection at print time; any label printer connects via USB; a preparation ticket can be printed per product.
• The same receipt can show the details of a specific shop and a simplified receipt (subtotals and taxes without the lines) can be printed.
• In restaurants, service is organised by named courses (starter, main, dessert) linked to product categories; the till suggests converting lines into a combo for large tables.
• On kiosks and in self-ordering, an order-specific QR code allows paying after the meal, customers leave a note visible in the kitchen, optional products are displayed and the receipt goes out by WhatsApp or SMS.
• Closing the session generates a global sale that simplifies accounting entries and payment entries are created at the set time without waiting for closing.
• Employee access levels are renamed and a highly restrictive "Supervised" level appears. A product can be snoozed temporarily and expired products trigger an alert when selected.
• For restaurants delivering through a third-party platform (Uber Eats, Deliveroo and others), the UrbanPiper connector is managed from the till and covers a dozen additional platforms.

Field service, quality, signature and subscriptions

Field service changes its technical foundation, with concrete new capabilities for mobile teams as a result.

• On-site customer interventions now rely on Planning, the same tool as team scheduling, for a consistent overview across all the company's schedules. The same time slot can be shared between several people or resources and priority shifts are scheduled first.
• Technicians are geolocated in real time on a map, automatic planning takes customer addresses into account, the route is calculated in ordered or optimised mode and travel times appear in the Gantt via Mapbox.
• Travel fees are invoiced by distance or at a flat rate, the customer receives a confirmation email when the shift is published, rates their satisfaction after the intervention and can submit a request from a website form.
• The customer's intervention and equipment history is tracked, with their coverage by a maintenance contract via Subscriptions and access to their documentation from the shift. Products are added to the shift by barcode scan.
• A technician gets the intervention signed on a tablet as normal. Selling an additional service on the spot requires specific sales access, which is not granted by default.
• A company can use its own electronic signature certificate and signature requests can be triggered by automated actions with fixed or dynamic signers (customer, salesperson).
• Loyalty programmes can apply automatically to subscription renewals.

In summary

Odoo 20 is not a mere cosmetic update. Several foundations change in depth (access rights, field management, telephony, artificial intelligence, icons), while the daily work of each business area gains comfort without brutal upheaval.

A few elements disappear or change place: the Field Service app (taken over by Planning), the Remote Work and Org Chart modules (merged into Employees), payroll work entries, the Mondial Relay modules (replaced by Sendcloud), the Belgian Winbooks accounting import, the Belgian fiscal certification at the till and French payroll, absent from the sources we analysed. Each of these points is checked before the migration if your business depends on it.