Odoo Point of Sale (POS): How It Works and What Your Business Can Do With It

If you run a shop, restaurant, café, or another business where you sell products directly to customers, you need a reliable way to process sales.

This is where Odoo Point of Sale (POS) comes in.

Odoo POS is the sales screen your employees use to sell products, take payments, print receipts, and complete orders. But it is not just a cash register.

Because POS is part of Odoo, a sale can also update your inventory, record customer information, and connect with other parts of your Odoo system.

This means you can manage much more than the sale itself.

What is Odoo POS?

Odoo POS is a Point of Sale system built into Odoo.

It can be used in many different types of businesses, including:

• Retail shops
• Supermarkets
• Clothing stores
• Restaurants
• Cafés
• Bars
• Bakeries
• Electronics shops
• Small stores
• Businesses with multiple locations

An employee can open the POS, select a product, take payment, and complete the sale.

Behind the scenes, Odoo can take care of the related information.

For example, if a customer buys three products, Odoo can record the sale and update the stock of those products.

You don’t need to enter the same information into several different systems.

How does Odoo POS work?

The basic process is simple.

A customer comes to your shop and wants to buy something.

Your employee opens the POS and adds the products to the order. This can be done by searching for the product, selecting it from the screen, or scanning its barcode.

The employee then selects the payment method.

The customer pays, and the order is completed.

Depending on your configuration, Odoo can then update the related inventory and other records.

For the employee, the process can be very simple:

Select products → Take payment → Complete the order

The complexity is handled by Odoo in the background.

Odoo POS and Inventory

One of the biggest advantages of using Odoo POS is its connection with inventory.

Imagine that your shop has 100 units of a product.

A customer buys two.

The POS records the sale, and the related inventory information can be updated automatically.

This gives you a much better picture of what is happening in your business.

You can use Odoo to see information such as:

• Products currently in stock
• Products sold through POS
• Stock movements
• Product quantities
• Product variants
• Lots and serial numbers where required
• Inventory across different locations

This is particularly useful when you have a large number of products.

Instead of maintaining your POS and inventory as two separate systems, they can work together.

Barcode scanning

If your business sells physical products, barcode scanning can make the checkout process much faster.

An employee can scan a product instead of searching for it manually.

Odoo can identify the product and add it to the current order.

This is useful for businesses with hundreds or thousands of products.

For example, a clothing store may have different sizes and colours for the same product. A barcode can help the employee select the correct product variant quickly.

Customers in Odoo POS

Odoo POS can also work with customer information.

Instead of treating every sale as an anonymous transaction, you can associate an order with a particular customer.

This can be useful when you want to:

• Track customer purchases
• Apply customer-specific pricing
• Offer discounts
• Manage loyalty programs
• Keep customer information in Odoo
• Review previous orders

For some businesses, this can turn the POS from a simple checkout system into part of the overall customer management process.

Prices and discounts

Different businesses have different pricing requirements.

For example, you might have:

• Standard prices
• Wholesale prices
• VIP prices
• Customer-specific prices
• Promotional prices
• Temporary discounts

Odoo provides tools for managing different pricing scenarios.

You can also customize the POS when your pricing rules are more complicated than the standard Odoo functionality allows.

For example, your business might have a special rule where a discount depends on the quantity purchased, customer type, product category, or another condition.

Instead of changing your entire sales process, you can extend the POS to support the required logic.

Payments

Odoo POS can support different payment methods depending on your configuration.

For example:

• Cash
• Card
• Bank-related payment methods
• Other configured payment providers

You can configure payment methods for your POS and allow employees to select the appropriate method when completing an order.

This also makes it easier to review sales later.

For example, you may want to know how much was received in cash and how much was paid by card.

Odoo POS for restaurants and cafés

Odoo POS is not limited to retail shops.

It can also be used in restaurants and cafés.

The workflow is different because customers may order food or drinks rather than physical retail products.

For example, an order might look like:

Table 12 → 2 coffees + 1 sandwich + 1 cake

The order can then be processed through the restaurant workflow.

Depending on the setup, orders can also be connected with kitchen operations and other parts of the restaurant process.

This can help employees avoid manually transferring information from one system to another.

Multiple shops and POS terminals

If your business has more than one shop, Odoo can be configured to work with multiple locations and POS sessions.

For example:

Shop A

• POS 1
• POS 2

Shop B

• POS 3
• POS 4

You can manage the different POS configurations within the same Odoo environment.

This can be especially useful when you want to have a central system containing information about products, customers, sales, and inventory.

What happens when the Internet connection is lost?

This is an important question for businesses using POS.

A POS system needs to be practical in the real world. You cannot simply stop selling because the Internet connection temporarily disappears.

Odoo POS is designed to support working in situations where the connection to the Odoo server is temporarily unavailable, although the exact behaviour depends on the Odoo version, configuration, and the operation being performed.

This is one of the areas that should be tested carefully when setting up a POS system for a real business.

Can Odoo POS be customized?

Yes.

This is where Odoo becomes particularly interesting for businesses with specific requirements.

The standard POS functionality may be enough for many companies.

But sometimes your business has a process that doesn’t fit the standard workflow.

For example, you might need:

• A custom button on the POS screen
• Additional product information
• Special pricing rules
• Custom discounts
• A special payment workflow
• Additional information on receipts
• Integration with another system
• Custom barcode behaviour
• A custom customer selection process
• Additional validation before completing an order
• A connection with a warehouse or external application

These types of requirements can often be implemented by developing a custom Odoo module.

A practical example of Odoo POS customization

Imagine that a retail company has a special bonus system.

When a customer buys certain products, the employee can give the customer a free product.

The standard POS may not provide exactly the workflow the company needs.

Instead of asking employees to calculate everything manually, we could extend the POS.

The employee could see something like:

Product: Coffee Quantity: 10 Bonus: 1 free product

The POS could calculate the bonus automatically and add the appropriate product to the order.

This is a good example of where Odoo customization can make a real business process easier.

The goal is not to customize Odoo just because customization is possible.

The goal is to remove unnecessary manual work.

Can Odoo POS connect to other systems?

Yes.

Sometimes the POS needs to communicate with systems outside Odoo.

For example, a business might need to connect Odoo with:

• Payment services
• E-commerce websites
• External warehouses
• Accounting systems
• Customer loyalty platforms
• Custom mobile applications
• Other ERP or business systems

The integration can be built using the appropriate API or other technical methods, depending on the external system.

The important part is to understand what information needs to move between the systems and when it needs to happen.

For example:

POS → Odoo → External system

or:

External system → Odoo → POS

The correct architecture depends on the business requirements.

Odoo POS vs a separate POS system

A common question is whether a business should use Odoo POS or keep its existing POS system.

There is no single answer.

If your current POS works well and you don’t need integration with Odoo, replacing it may not make sense.

But if you already use Odoo for inventory, sales, customers, purchasing, accounting, or other business processes, having the POS inside the same system can have significant advantages.

You don’t have to maintain completely separate product and sales databases.

The decision should be based on the actual business workflow rather than simply choosing the newest technology.

When is standard Odoo POS enough?

For many businesses, standard Odoo POS may be enough.

If you need a relatively straightforward process such as:

Product → Sale → Payment → Inventory update

you may not need custom development.

This is usually the best starting point.

Before developing anything custom, it is worth checking whether Odoo already provides the required functionality.

Customization should solve a real problem.

It shouldn’t be added simply because the system allows it.

When do you need Odoo POS development?

Custom development becomes useful when your business has requirements that cannot be handled effectively with standard Odoo functionality.

For example, you may need a completely different sales workflow or an integration with a system that Odoo doesn’t support out of the box.

In these situations, an Odoo developer can extend the existing POS rather than building an entirely separate application.

This can include both the backend Odoo models and the POS interface itself.

Modern Odoo POS customizations can also involve OWL, Odoo’s JavaScript framework for building interactive user interfaces.

This makes it possible to add custom behaviour directly to the POS screen while keeping it integrated with the rest of Odoo.

The best way to approach Odoo POS customization

We normally recommend starting with the business process rather than the technical solution.

First, describe what your employee needs to do.

For example:

“When the customer buys five products from this category, the employee should be able to give one additional product for free.”

Then we can look at how Odoo currently handles the process.

Only after that do we decide whether configuration is enough or whether custom development is necessary.

This approach usually leads to a simpler and more reliable solution.

Is Odoo POS right for your business?

Odoo POS can be a good choice if you want your point-of-sale operations to be connected with the rest of your business system.

The main benefit is not simply having a screen where employees can take payments.

The real benefit is having the POS connected with things such as products, inventory, customers, sales, and other Odoo applications.

And when the standard POS doesn’t match your business process, it can be extended.

You don’t necessarily have to change the way your business works to fit the software.

The software can be customized to fit the way you work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Odoo POS?

Odoo POS is Odoo’s Point of Sale application. It allows businesses to sell products or services, process payments, manage POS orders, and connect sales with other parts of Odoo.

Can Odoo POS manage inventory?

Yes. Odoo POS can work together with Odoo Inventory so that POS sales and inventory operations are connected.

Can I use barcode scanners with Odoo POS?

Yes. Barcode scanning can be used to identify products quickly during the checkout process.

Can Odoo POS be customized?

Yes. Developers can extend Odoo POS with custom buttons, workflows, pricing rules, integrations, product information, and other functionality.

Can Odoo POS work with multiple shops?

Yes. Odoo can be configured for businesses operating multiple shops and POS terminals.

Can Odoo POS integrate with another system?

Yes. Odoo POS can be integrated with external systems when the required API or integration method is available.

Do I need custom development for Odoo POS?

Not necessarily. It is usually better to start with the standard Odoo functionality and only develop custom features when your business requires something that cannot be achieved effectively through configuration.

Final thoughts

Odoo POS can be much more than a digital cash register.

When it is properly configured, a sale at the checkout can become part of your wider business process — from inventory and customers to sales and reporting.

And if your business has a special process, Odoo POS can be customized rather than forcing your employees to work around the software.

If you already use Odoo and need to change the way your POS works, we can look at your current process, identify what Odoo can handle out of the box, and develop only the custom functionality you actually need.