Introduction
Generating accurate, professional quotations is essential for closing deals — but it can be time-consuming. In this guide you will learn how to create quotations automatically in Odoo by combining built-in templates, automation rules and AI-assisted content and price suggestions.
Why automate quotations?
- Save time: reduce manual entry and repetitive work.
- Improve consistency: standardized templates and product selections.
- Increase conversion: faster response times and clearer proposals.
- Reduce errors: automated calculations and predefined rules.
What you need
- An Odoo database with Sales and Products configured.
- Quotation templates or product bundles for recurring offers.
- Access to Odoo automated actions or a workflow tool (e.g. server actions, studio, or a custom module).
- An AI integration for generating descriptions, customizing messages, or suggesting prices (can be an internal Odoo AI module or an external LLM via API).
Step-by-step setup
1. Prepare products and pricelists
Make sure your products have correct cost, sale price and attributes. Create pricelists for customer segments (volume discounts, region-based pricing) so the automation can pick correct rates.
2. Create reusable quotation templates
Use Odoo's quotation templates (or sale.order.template) to prefill lines, terms and optional products. Add standard payment terms, validity, and branded message blocks.
3. Add automation to create quotations
Use Odoo automated actions or server actions to trigger quotation creation. Typical triggers:
- New lead/opportunity reaches a qualification stage.
- Customer requests a quote via website form or livechat.
- Scheduled cron job for recurring proposals.
The action should create a sale.order with lines copied from a template, apply the correct pricelist, set the customer and apply default salespeople.
4. Integrate AI for smarter content and pricing
AI can add value in three common ways:
- Generate personalized quotation introductions and item descriptions from the customer's context.
- Suggest price adjustments (discounts or upsells) based on historical win-rate data and margin targets.
- Auto-classify incoming requests to select the right template or bundle.
Implementation options:
- Use a built-in Odoo AI/add-on (if available) and configure prompts for your templates.
- Build a small middleware that sends structured data (customer segment, items, margins) to an LLM and returns suggested text and price modifiers.
5. Review and approval workflow
Depending on risk, route automatically-generated quotations through an approval stage for high-value deals. Use approval rules to require manager validation before sending to customers.
6. Send and track
Send quotations by email or portal. Track views and convert accepted quotations to sales orders. Use automated follow-ups for unopened or expiring quotes.
Best practices
- Start small: automate a subset of quotations (e.g. one product line or one customer segment).
- Log AI suggestions: keep a record of any AI-suggested prices or messages for auditability.
- Monitor metrics: quotation-to-order rate, average time to send, and margin impact.
- Keep templates and prompts up to date as your products and pricing change.
Example: simple server action flow
- Trigger: Opportunity stage becomes 'Ready to Quote'.
- Action: Create a sale order from a quotation template and apply pricelist.
- Action: Call AI service to generate a personalized message and suggested discount.
- Action: Add AI message to quotation email body and set discount on order lines (if within policy).
- Action: Send quotation to customer and set a 3-day reminder if not viewed.
Conclusion
Automating quotations in Odoo with AI reduces time-to-quote and improves consistency, while keeping humans in the loop for final approval. Start with templates and automation rules, then add AI-driven personalization and pricing suggestions as you iterate.
If you want, I can implement this as a working flow in your database (create templates, automation rules, and example server actions) — tell me which product lines and customer segment to start with and I will set it up.