Sales Order to Manufacturing Order in Odoo MRP: Automating the Make-to-Order Chain

Why the Sales-to-Manufacturing Link Matters

When a customer orders a product you have to build rather than pull off a shelf, several things must line up: raw materials have to be bought, a manufacturing order has to be raised, and the finished item has to be delivered. The Hong Kong manufacturers and made-to-order businesses APAA works with usually start out coordinating this by hand — a WhatsApp to the supplier here, a note to the workshop there — and it is slow, easy to get wrong, and the first thing to break when orders pick up.

Odoo MRP lets you automate the whole chain. Once it is configured, confirming a sales order triggers the manufacturing order and the purchase orders for any missing components. That removes the production bottlenecks caused by materials nobody ordered in time, and keeps your fulfilment pipeline moving without a coordinator chasing every step.

Before You Start

Make sure you have these in place:

• Odoo Manufacturing (MRP) installed
• Odoo Sales installed
• Odoo Purchase installed
• Odoo Inventory installed
• A product with a Bill of Materials (BoM) already created

Step 1: Configure the Bill of Materials

Go to Manufacturing > Products > Bills of Materials and open the BoM for the product you make (for example, "Conference Chair").

On the product form, open the Inventory tab and confirm the Manufacture route is selected. This tells Odoo the product should be produced rather than bought in.

Step 2: Set Up Component Purchasing

For each component in your BoM that you source from a vendor:

1. Open the component's product form
2. Open the Inventory tab and select the Buy route
3. Open the Purchase tab and add your vendor

This is how Odoo knows where to source each component when it generates a purchase order.

Step 3: Create Reordering Rules

Reordering rules tell Odoo how many units to order when stock runs low. For each purchasable component:

1. Open the product form
2. Click the Reordering Rules smart button
3. Click Create
4. Set your minimum and maximum quantities
5. Click Save

For example, if your maximum is 10 and a new order needs 1 unit, Odoo orders 11 — bringing stock up to the maximum plus the immediate demand.

Step 4: Create a Sales Order

Go to the Sales app and create a new quotation:

1. Select your customer
2. Add the manufactured product (for example, Conference Chair) to the order lines
3. Save and Confirm the quotation

Confirming turns the quotation into a sales order and generates a delivery order. At this point the delivery shows a Waiting status, because the product has not been manufactured yet.

Step 5: Trigger Replenishment

The purchase and manufacturing orders do not appear from the sales order on their own — you trigger replenishment:

1. Go to Inventory > Operations > Replenishment
2. Find your product in the list
3. Click Automate Orders

This creates:

• A Manufacturing Order for the finished product
• Purchase Orders for the components that need to be bought from vendors

Step 6: Process the Purchase Order

Go to the Purchase app. You will see a new purchase order linked to your sales order — check the source document reference.

1. Open the purchase order
2. Review the quantities — Odoo calculates these from your reordering rules
3. Confirm the order
4. Click Receive Products when the goods arrive
5. Validate the receipt

Your components are now in stock and ready for production.

Step 7: Complete the Manufacturing Order

Go to Manufacturing > Operations > Manufacturing Orders. Your order should show a Ready status now that all components are available.

1. Open the manufacturing order
2. Click Mark as Done
3. Click Apply

The finished product is now in stock.

Step 8: Deliver to the Customer

Return to the original sales order and open the delivery order. It should now read Ready instead of Waiting.

1. Click Validate to process the delivery
2. The reserved quantity is applied as the done quantity

The order is complete and the product is on its way to your customer.

The Whole Flow at a Glance

With this in place, your business can absorb any volume of made-to-order work without worrying about stock shortages or someone having to manually coordinate between sales, purchasing, and the workshop.

Where to go next: add work centres and operations to your BoM for more detailed production tracking, or explore Odoo's MRP scheduling features to plan manufacturing capacity ahead of demand.

If your Hong Kong business runs on made-to-order production and you want this chain automated properly, speak with APAA — we will configure MRP around your products, vendors, and lead times.