How Partner Addresses are Managed in Odoo 18: Complete Guide

Address management for your customers and vendors is one of the most important concerns for any business, from sales to delivery to invoicing. In Odoo 18, this is handled effectively through a flexible system that depends on a parent-child relationship for contacts and allows users to define specific address types for different business purposes.

Odoo 18 brings refined flexibility in handling partner addresses, making it easy to manage multiple addresses under a single contact. In this comprehensive tutorial, we'll explore how to effectively manage partner addresses in Odoo 18—covering configuration, address hierarchy, best practices, and advanced tips to keep your contact database accurate and efficient.

Understanding Partner Address Management in Odoo 18

In Odoo, all contacts—whether individuals or companies—are managed through the Contacts application. Each contact record is stored in the model res.partner. Odoo provides a parent-child structure that allows one parent partner (the main company) to have multiple sub-contacts or addresses, such as delivery, billing, or others.

This structure ensures data consistency and simplifies order and invoice management.

Parent-Child Structure

Key Partner Address Types in Odoo 18

Odoo has specific "Contact Types" to differentiate and automatically use different addresses. When creating a new contact under a parent company, you will pick one of the following types:

1. Contact (General Purpose)

This is the default option for any general contact associated with the company. It could be:

• A key account manager
• A specific employee
• A general branch office

Primary Use: General communication, CRM activities, and as a fallback address if no particular delivery or invoice address is specified for a given transaction.

2. Delivery Address

The Delivery Address identifies the location to which goods or products should be delivered. By default, this address type will be selected in Odoo while creating:

• Sales orders
• Delivery orders
• Shipping documents

In a Sales Order, you can easily select the exact delivery address from among the contacts associated with the customer. This selection automatically populates the delivery orders (pickings) generated by the sale. In Inventory Management, this address is crucial for generating accurate shipping labels.

3. Invoice Address

This address is for all billing and financial documents. A company's head office or accounting department very often handles invoices, though deliveries may go somewhere else entirely. You can specify a separate invoice address on a sales order, and this address will be used when Odoo generates customer invoices.

4. Other Address

This is the catch-all for any address that doesn't fit well into the delivery or invoice categories but is important to retain on the partner record. Examples include:

• Legal address
• Service address
• Another branch for other inquiries

How to Configure Partner Addresses in Odoo 18

Setting up and managing these addresses in Odoo 18 is straightforward. Follow these steps:

You can repeat Steps 3-5 to add as many different addresses as your business requires for a single parent company. When creating sales orders, you can easily select the appropriate delivery and invoice addresses from the available options.

Benefits of Odoo's Partner Address Management

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The potent functionality in Odoo 18 for managing partner addresses, coupled with the intuitiveness of its parent-child contact structure, is a true asset for any business. Companies that clearly define and use different address types for delivering, invoicing, and general contact reasons will see large improvements in operations, almost zero occurrence of errors, and be able to offer more efficient and effective services to their customers and vendors alike.

To unlock the true potential of Odoo as a robust business management solution, mastering this core functionality is an essential target.