Odoo Documents: a shared drive, OCR digitization, and e-sign in one workspace

What is Odoo Documents?

Odoo Documents is the centralized document management application in Odoo's Productivity category. Per the official Odoo 19 documentation, it lets you store, view, and manage files within Odoo — and is described in the docs as behaving like a shared drive inside the system.

Files and folders are organized into left-rail sections: All (everything you can access), Company (shared across the company, governed by per-folder access rights), My Drive (your personal workspace for files you own or uploaded), Shared with me, Recent, and Trash. You can add folders under Company or My Drive, and nest sub-folders under a parent for deeper structure.

For an SME replacing a patchwork of network drives, shared mailboxes, and scattered attachments, Documents gives every team a single place to find contracts, bills, payslips, and signed agreements — attached to the records they relate to inside Odoo.

Workspace and folder configuration

Folders in Odoo Documents are more than storage containers. Each folder can carry configuration that determines what happens to files placed inside it:

Actions on Select — custom server-action buttons shown for files inside that folder, so a button like Send for Digitization or Sign appears only where it is relevant.

Automations (requires Odoo Studio) — server actions that run automatically when files are added or edited.

AI Auto-sort (requires Odoo AI) — a custom prompt that organizes files into the folder, tags them, moves them, or creates records such as invoices and bills.

Tags, email aliases, and linked records — files can be tagged on upload and linked to an Odoo record via the Linked to field.

Access is controlled per folder and per file using Viewer and Editor rights, and the Add star action is a per-user favorite that does not change anyone else's workspace. This is a meaningful step up from a flat shared drive where everyone sees everything.

Requesting files from employees, customers, and vendors

One of the most useful day-to-day features is Requesting files. Instead of emailing a PDF back and forth to collect a signed contract, a payslip, or a bank form, you create a request inside Odoo:

Click New > Request, set a Document Name, choose who you are requesting it from (Request To), optionally add a Due Date, pick the target Folder, add Tags, and write a Message. Click Request.

A placeholder appears in the target folder. When the recipient clicks it, they upload the file directly into Odoo — no account on their side, no email attachment gymnastics.

Requests are tracked in the Documents Activity view under a Requested Document column, where you can upload, edit, cancel, or send a reminder email individually, or send a bulk reminder to all outstanding requests.

For an SME onboarding a new hire, collecting vendor W-9s, or pulling in customer credit references, this removes an entire class of email churn.

Built-in PDF tools: split, merge, versions, lock, shortcut

Documents ships with PDF manipulation tools so most file handling never leaves Odoo:

Split PDF — open a PDF, click Actions > Split PDF, click the scissors icon between pages to remove a split, then confirm.

Merge PDFs — multi-select files in a folder (Ctrl-click), click Actions > Merge PDFs, optionally add files from your computer, then confirm. The Odoo 19 documentation explicitly notes that the original PDFs are replaced by the merged version, so merge is a destructive operation on the source files.

File management also includes Duplicate, Move, Rename, Manage versions, Lock (to prevent edits while a file is being reviewed), and Create shortcut (to surface the same file in multiple folders without copying it).

These are small features individually, but together they eliminate the need to bounce files out to a desktop PDF tool just to combine two invoices or pull a page out of a contract.

File centralization: attachments that route themselves

File centralization (Documents > Configuration > Settings) is the connective tissue between Documents and the rest of Odoo. It automatically routes attachments created in other apps into dedicated folders, with tags applied.

It is enabled by default when you install an app, and you can change the target folder or tags per app. The Odoo 19 documentation calls out two important special cases:

File centralization cannot be disabled for Accounting documents. A sub-folder is created automatically for each journal type (Sales, Purchase, Bank, and so on), and the journal name is added as a tag on each document. For Human Resources files, a sub-folder is automatically created for each employee, tagged by document type (Contracts, Payslips, etc.).

Changing the folder or tags only affects new files — existing files are left where they are. And when file centralization is enabled for an app, deleting the related record in that app moves its attachments to Trash rather than deleting them outright.

The practical effect: when a vendor emails a bill to a journal's alias, or a sales rep attaches a spec sheet to a quote, the file lands in the right folder automatically, tagged and linked to its record.

Finance-folder OCR: vendor bills, invoices, and credit notes

Files in the Documents Finance folder can be turned into draft Accounting records. Select the file, click Create Vendor Bill, Create Customer Invoice, or Create Customer Credit Note, then click Send for Digitization.

Odoo's Extract service (an In-App Purchase cloud service) runs OCR and AI on PDFs and images, populates the draft record with fields such as Vendor, Bill Reference, Bill Date, Payment Reference, Recipient Bank, Due Date, Currency, and per-line Product, Quantity, Unit Price, and Taxes, and presents confidence scores so a human can verify before posting.

Digitization is configured under Accounting > Configuration > Settings > Digitization, where you choose Digitize automatically or Digitize on demand per document type. Vendors can be set to Auto-post bills (Always / Ask after 3 validations without edits / Never) when auto-digitization is on.

Pricing is usage-based: per the Odoo 19 documentation, digitizing one document uses one credit. Electronic vendor bills with embedded structured data (such as UBL, factur-x, or country-specific XML e-invoices) are imported directly without OCR and do not consume credits, which matters for businesses in jurisdictions that mandate structured e-invoicing. After digitization, the Purchase matching smart button matches bill lines against open Purchase Orders (or creates a PO).

This is the workflow that distinguishes Documents from a generic shared drive: a PDF dropped into a folder becomes a reconcilable accounting record with a couple of clicks.

Odoo Sign integration

Odoo Sign (a separate Productivity app) handles electronic signatures and is tightly wired into Documents:

Start a signature request from any Odoo record via Actions > Request Signature — the related contact is typically added as a signer automatically, and once fully signed, the completed document and certificate of completion are attached to the record's chatter.

Sign can pull PDFs from Documents via Actions > Import from Documents, and a Documents folder can be configured (Actions > Actions on Select > Sign) so PDFs in that folder show a Sign button for direct signing or sending without pre-added fields.

Sign templates can specify a target Documents folder and tags, so fully signed files are saved back into Documents automatically — closing the loop from request to signed, filed copy.

On legal validity, Odoo's documentation states that documents signed with Sign are considered valid electronic signatures in the European Union (under the eIDAS regulation, as simple electronic signatures) and in the United States (under the ESIGN Act and UETA), and meet the requirements in most countries. Odoo positions these as simple (not qualified) electronic signatures — sufficient for most common business documents, but for high-stakes or cross-border contracts treat that as vendor positioning and confirm with local counsel rather than as independent legal advice.

The Dynamics 365 equivalent (and where it differs)

Microsoft splits document management across products because Dynamics 365 is not a single stack. The right comparison depends on which D365 product you run.

Business Central (SME-focused): attachments live in a FactBox on records and support any file type, with in-browser PDF preview. An Attach as PDF action snapshots the current document. By default, files are stored in the BC database, but an External File Storage framework can offload them to Azure Blob Storage, Azure File Share, or SharePoint document libraries to reduce database size. There is no native OCR digitization equivalent to Odoo Documents inside the attachment layer — automation is handled separately via Incoming Documents, e-documents, and Power Automate.

Dynamics 365 Finance (F&O): configurable Document Management uses Document Types (File, Image, Note, URL). Per Microsoft Learn, each document type's storage Location can be set to options including Azure (default external option), SharePoint, Archive (database), or Temp database — with a configurable max file size and a file-type allow-list. This is a per-document-type attachment store, not a workspace-style document manager.

Dataverse / Customer Engagement (Sales, Customer Service): attachments are Notes (Annotation, base64-encoded), modern File columns, or email attachments, all counting against Dataverse file storage. Server-based SharePoint integration is the collaborative layer — enabling it for an entity (Account, Opportunity, Quote, Case, Lead) creates a SharePoint library named after the entity, and per-record folders resolve through SharePointDocumentLocation records. Users get versioning, check-in/out, and direct SharePoint access.

Nearest-equivalent mapping: the shared-drive/workspace concept in Odoo Documents is closest to D365 Customer Engagement plus SharePoint integration. Business Central and Finance offer per-record attachments rather than a workspace. Vendor-bill OCR digitization has no direct D365 equivalent inside the document layer — that gap is filled by Power Automate, AI Builder, or ISV solutions rather than a built-in finance-folder workflow. E-sign has no native D365 equivalent; SharePoint plus Power Automate plus a third-party e-sign tool is the usual path.

Note these capabilities are version- and license-dependent: SharePoint integration in F&O requires the Microsoft-managed cloud (not on-prem SharePoint), and Dataverse SharePoint integration requires tenant licensing and Entra consent. Do not assume universal availability — check your specific D365 edition before scoping a rollout.

Choosing for an SME: integrated vs. modular

The decision is less about which platform is better and more about the operating model you want.

Pick Odoo Documents if you want one integrated workspace — shared drive, OCR digitization, e-sign, file requests, and per-folder automations inside a single system, with accounting attachments that turn into draft bills automatically. The tradeoff is that everything lives inside Odoo.

Pick Dynamics 365 if your organization is already invested in the Microsoft stack — Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Entra ID, Power Platform — and you want document management to flow through those services. Business Central attachments cover day-to-day SME needs; SharePoint integration gives Customer Engagement teams the collaborative layer; Finance document types give F&O teams controlled, per-type storage. The tradeoff is that OCR digitization and e-sign require additional Microsoft or third-party tooling.

As a dual-platform implementation partner, Flectic helps SMEs in Canada, the UK, and the USA choose the right fit and then implement it — with an AI-accelerated delivery model designed to deliver up to 3x faster than a traditional ERP rollout. Book an ERP Readiness Call if you want help scoping either path.