Duration: 25:24
Part 1 — Analytical Summary 🚀
💼 Context
This session is a live “Ask Me Anything” focused on the evolution of the Odoo POS Restaurant app from version 18 to 19, and what’s coming next. The product lead fields real-world questions ranging from UX and feature scope to hardware, compliance, and partner enablement. The core message: the foundations are now strong; the roadmap pivots from “covering basics” to refining experience, broadening integrations, and ensuring reliable rollouts at scale.
🧠 Core ideas & innovations
The headline feature highlighted as a favorite is the new Course management. Previously, stages like starters/mains/desserts relied on ad‑hoc notes. Now, waitstaff can assign items to courses and “fire” each course at the right moment, with the kitchen receiving visual and audible cues. This simple, structured orchestration removes a daily pain point and aligns preparation timing across front and back of house.
On ordering channels, the team reframes “online orders” through Self Orders / QR Menu. Restaurants can link eCommerce “View Menu” buttons to the self-ordering page; orders placed there go straight to the kitchen, reusing all POS restaurant logic without bespoke connectors. A related UX principle runs through the talk: add less, remove noise. The team actively trims buttons and clutter to keep workflows fast, acknowledging that niche requests can create technical debt with limited payoff for most venues.
Reliability was a major focus in v18 with the introduction of concurrency (multi-device sync). That brought tough bugs—tables or lines seemingly “disappearing”—which the team chased and hardened. Today, synchronization is described as stable, with only edge cases (e.g., poor IoT or network conditions) still risky.
Two areas dominate the near-term roadmap. First, access rights move from three simple tiers (advanced/basic/minimal) to more granular, per-employee permissions (e.g., who can refund, who can cash in/out), reflecting diverse regional risk profiles and operations. Second, hardware & partner readiness: restaurants always need physical kit (cash drawers, printers, terminals, fiscal devices). Odoo is providing hardware bundles, on-site installation, and network audits so projects work “out of the box,” while training partners to demystify those deployments.
Compliance looms large in Belgium, where legacy fiscal black box devices are being replaced by Internet-connected “white box” units. Odoo is building its own white box and targeting certification by year-end. New restaurants (starting in 2025) must adopt the white box; existing ones have until 2028. Any certified POS must work with any certified box, but using Odoo’s own keeps the ecosystem cohesive.
There’s steady progress on commerce/payment edges. The kiosk currently supports only a few terminals; a refactor will align its payment architecture with the POS so one set of integrations works everywhere. For discounts and service extras, global discount is percentage-only today; a fixed-amount option is planned “after v19,” with similar flexibility intended for tips. A standard “service fee” isn’t built-in yet, but can be modeled with optional products or price lists. “After-payment tips” (common in the US) aren’t planned for now—hardware flows (e.g., Stripe terminals that cannot host web pages) make the experience unreliable. Delivery marketplaces can be consolidated through the Indian hub partner Urban Paper via API, bringing orders from multiple aggregators into one screen.
Operationally, the BOM/recipes integration is supported for stock consumption (except where blocked by the Belgian black box rules; the white box era should relax constraints). Support for granular ingredient removals affecting inventory (e.g., “no tomatoes” reduces consumption) is deemed too complex for the target persona and not planned as standard. The app saves kitchen events continuously—unlike Retail POS, which posts on payment—so restaurants can later compare what was sent to the kitchen versus final validations. Capacity planning is present: you can limit orders per time slot and staff can override on-site. Notifications for scheduled pickups are handled by email today (SMS not yet). Reservations can assign or skip table selection, and a waiting list is available.
⚙️ Impact & takeaways
The POS Restaurant in v19 stands on a much stronger operational core: dependable multi-device sync, smarter course firing, and consistent self-serve flows. Expect near-term gains in security and governance through granular access rights, and smoother go-lives via hardware bundles and partner training. Compliance readiness advances with the Belgian white box initiative. On the horizon, a kiosk refactor should unify payment integrations with the POS.
The product philosophy favors speed and clarity over edge-case bloat. Some asks—combo auto-suggestions, per‑ingredient stock deductions, after‑payment tips, branch-spanning “trusted POS,” and native service fees—remain gaps or have workarounds, reflecting a deliberate choice to keep the experience focused, reliable, and easy for most restaurants to run day to day. 💬
Part 2 — Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo’s vision.
We build for everyday reality: a busy lunch rush, a shaky Wi‑Fi, a new hire on their first shift. When the basics are rock solid—tickets sync perfectly, courses fire on time—teams feel confident. That’s the value of integration: the same backbone from menu to kitchen to accounting, with fewer moving parts to break.
Our job is to make things simpler as we grow. That means removing steps, unifying payment logic across POS and kiosk, and giving partners the hardware playbooks to deliver “it just works.” The community’s feedback steers us—especially on security and compliance—so we can keep the product lean, fast, and trustworthy.
Part 3 — Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
Odoo’s restaurant stack is maturing: the new course orchestration, hardened synchronization, and emphasis on hardware rollout reduce friction for SMB and mid-market deployments. The Belgian white box effort shows credible compliance intent. Their integrated suite—from POS to inventory—remains a notable UX advantage.
There are, however, enterprise considerations: multi-branch trust models, after-payment gratuities in North America, service-fee policies, and granular modifier-to-inventory logic are nontrivial for chains and regulated markets. Kiosk/payment parity is still being refactored; scalability, offline resiliency, and audit depth will be key differentiators. If Odoo sustains its simplicity while offering optional depth for larger operators, it will pressure incumbents on total cost and speed of deployment.
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.