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Apache OFBiz User Manual

Introduction to OFBiz

Welcome to Apache OFBiz! A powerful top level Apache software project.

OFBiz is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System written in Java and
houses a large set of
libraries, entities, services and features to run
all aspects of your business.

This manual will describe all aspects of this powerful ERP system. The manual
starts with the basics of what OFBiz is and how it works, and describes high
level concepts like
the entity engine, service engine, widget system and so on.
In addition the manual explains the core application of this framework like the
Party Manager, Order Manager,
Accounting system, and others.

If you wish to contribute to OFBiz and help make it better, you may wish to read
the "Apache OFBiz Developer Manual" for a deeper understanding of the
architectural concepts
of the framework.

What is Apache OFBiz

It is hard to define OFBiz because it offers many different solutions targeted
at different levels of interests (users, developers, business owners). At a low
level it may considered
a web framework, at another level, it may
considered a full fledged ERP system, and yet it can also be considered a
business automation suite.

The main parts of Apache OFBiz

Perhaps to better understand what OFBiz is, it may be necessary to understand
its main parts and the purpose that each part plays. Thus the main parts or
sub-systems are
summarized below.

Web MVC Framework

The lowest or most foundational part of Apache OFBiz is a classical web MVC
(Model View Controller) framework. This part of the system is designed for basic
routing of web
requests and may be considered as the infrastructure or plumbing
where everything is wired together.

Entity Engine

The entity engine allows OFBiz users to define entities, data, and queries in a
database-independent domain specific language (DSL) based on XML. Thus, without
learning any
SQL users can create and interact with databases in a
platform-independent manner and Apache OFBiz would make the translations under
the hood to each database system.

Service Engine

Apache OFBiz is designed specifically around a Service Oriented Architecture

(SOA). Services are units of business logic that take a set of input values and
produces a set of
output values.

Services are programming-language-independent. It does not matter whether a

service is implemented using Java, Groovy, Jython, or something else because
services are an
abstraction away from the underlying technology. This provides
maximum flexibility for designing business logic without worrying about
interoperability between different
languages.

Widget System

Whether the output is HTML, CSV, PDF, or something else, Apache OFBiz provides a
system for creating user interface that is independent of the actual
implementation. This
makes it possible to publish the same widget to HTML, PDF,
CSV or some other output format.

However, the widget system allows users, if needed, to drop down to any
platform-specific code and mix it with widget designs, thus providing a mix
between ease of use,
platform independence and customizability.

Data Model Library

Apache OFBiz is heavily inspired by a book called the "The Data Model Resource
Book". This book provides a "A Library of Universal Data Models for All
Enterprises". These
models cover things like parties, orders, invoices,
payments, general ledgers, quotes and much more.

By using OFBiz, adopters start with a full pre-designed data model that covers
common and universal business requirements. Hundreds of entities are defined
which save many
hours of thinking, designing, and testing such models.

It is important to note that the data model library does not only cover
entities, but also the data that comes with these entities. Data is further
categorized by function (seed,
demo, etc …​)

Service Library

Having a rich and powerful data model is not very useful on its own without
services that apply business logic on this data model. That is where the
services defined in Apache
OFBiz come into play.

OFBiz provides, out-of-the-box, thousands of services to create, retrieve,

update, delete, search, and do many other operations on the data model.

Core Applications

The core applications in Apache OFBiz are web applications that serve common
business needs found in most enterprises such as accounting, order management,
party
management and so on.

These core applications are built on top of the data model and service library
earlier described. The core applications are further described in the relevant
section.

Plugins

OFBiz extends any basic functionality through plugins. Plugins are very similar
to the core applications in design and structure, but are not shipped with
OFBiz by default. Thus
to install a plugin a user must add it to the framework
first.

Quick start

To quickly install and fire-up OFBiz, please follow the below instructions from
the command line at the OFBiz top level directory (folder).

Prepare OFBiz:

Note: Depending on your Internet connection speed it might take a long time
for this step to complete if you are using OFBiz for the first time as it needs
to download all
dependencies. So please be patient!

MS Windows: gradlew cleanAll loadAll

Unix-like OS: ./gradlew cleanAll loadAll

Start OFBiz:
MS Windows: gradlew ofbiz

Unix-like OS: ./gradlew ofbiz

Note: Ignore the % progress indicator because this task does not end as long
as OFBiz is running.

Visit OFBiz through your browser:

Order Back Office

Accounting Back Office

Administrator interface

You can log in with the user admin and password ofbiz.

Core Business Applications

Most businesses share universal needs. They require accounting functionality,

managing customers, placing orders, book-keeping, invoicing and so on.

OFBiz is designed so that such basic universal business needs are available
through a set of core business applications. These applications all share a
unified data-model with
a set of unified services to implement this
functionality.

This section of the manual will describe each core business application
starting with a high level overview of design and purpose down to the details
of how to achieve common
tasks.

Accounting
The OFBiz accounting system is a core application component and has most of the
modern features you would expect in a general purpose double-entry accounting
system.
However, OFBiz goes beyond that by and seamlessly integrates with other
OFBiz applications such as Inventory, Purchasing and Manufacturing to give your
business a
complete ERP solution. This makes the system as a whole robust and
integrated to provide more value than a plain accounting system.

About Accounting

The Accounting system is organised according to generally accepted principles

such as double-entry accounting, a General Ledger with hierarchical accounts,
journals and
posting of transactions and corresponding entries.

The structure is primary based on the OMG GL standard and the work that was done
on an AR/AP extension of the OMG GL standard. This correlates well with other
standards
such as ebXML and OAGIS.

The Accounting entities are structured such that accounts for multiple
organisations can be managed. The multiple organisations could be multiple
companies, or departments
or other organisations within a company. Each
organisation can have various GL Accounts associated with it so that it can
operate with its own subset of the Master Chart of
Accounts.

Each organisation can also have its own set of Journals for flexibility, even
though the use of Journals should be as minimal as possible in favour of allowing
the system to
automatically create and post transactions based on business events
triggered by standard procedures and documents such as purchase and sales orders,
invoices, inventory
transfers, payments, receipts, and so on.

Accounting Features

General Ledger

Accounts Receivable

Accounts Payable

Agreements

Multi-currency Support

Billing Accounts

Fixed Asset Accounting

OFBiz accounting can be configured to handle multiple organisations including

an unlimited number of companies, subsidiaries and departments.

Agreements

An “agreement” is a way of recording a business arrangement or contract that your

business makes with other companies or individuals. Some common examples of
agreements include Payment Terms (where you allow a customer up to 30
days to pay you) or Prompt Payment Discounts (where you offer a reduction on the
amount owing if
your customer pays you before a certain date)

At the time of writing, OFBiz allows you to create the following type of agreements

Product

Purchase

Sales

Employee

Commission

End User Licence

The most common agreements you will use will be Sales Agreements (for your
Customers), Purchase Agreements (for your Suppliers) and Commission Agreements
(for your
Sales Representatives).

Sales Agreement

A “Sales Agreement” is an agreement between you and your customers. A customer

can also be another business. You can create a range of conditions for your
customer
including giving them such as payment discounts or special payment terms
and credit limits.

If you have installed OFBiz with the demo data then there are already examples
of Sales Agreements created for you.

Purchase Agreement

A “Purchase Agreement” is an agreement between your business and a supplier. You

may have negotiated special conditions such as delivery, volume pricing and
invoice
terms.

If you have installed OFBiz with the demo data then there are already examples
of Purchase Agreements created for you.

Commission Agreement

A “Commission Agreement” is an agreement that is used to calculate how much money

a Sales Representative will get when products they have promoted or marketed are
sold
to customers. The rate paid to the Sales Representative is can be based on a
fixed or variable on a percentage of each sale they make. These amounts can be
quite small
amounts so it can be easier to consolidate multiple commission
payments into one large payment that is paid monthly.

If you have installed OFBiz with the demo data then there are already two example
Commission Agreements created for you.

Global General Ledger Settings

The Global General Ledger Settings are master templates that we can use to setup
up our chart of accounts, default transactions or other settings that can be applied
across
many OFBiz modules.

We need settings at a global level because OFBiz is an integrated system so certain

areas like accounting are linked to many other modules. It also makes sense to have
a
central place to setup things that will be used globally.

At the time of writing, the following are available as part of the Global GL Settings:

Chart of Accounts - a comprehensive master template for a complete chart of

accounts.

Custom Time Periods - a master list to display or setup financial periods

Costs - a master list of any cost calculations to be used for assets or tasks

Payment Method Type - a master list of the ways payments can be made (e.g. cash,
credit card etc) and the default accounts to be used for each

Invoice Item Type - a master list of all the transaction line types that can
occur on any invoice and the default account to be used for each

Rates - a list of rates (e.g. pay rates, overtime rates etc) that can be used
for billing work,tasks or as part of salary calculations

Foreign Exchange Rates - a master list of exchange rates to be used and dates
they are valid

GL Account Category - currently this is set to be a list of cost centres

Cost Centers - a way to specify how to process percentage allocations between

cost centres for specific accounts

Master Template - Chart of Accounts

If you load the demo data, then by default over 450 accounts are included as part
of the OFBiz global chart of accounts master template.

To setup a chart of accounts in OFBiz simply means that we need to select the
accounts we want to use from the global chart of accounts master template.

All general ledger accounts must exist in the global template before they can be
assigned to be used at the organisation level (e.g. Company)

Custom Time Periods

Time periods are a defined period of time (usually a month, quarter or year) that
is used to group business transactions. It is a key part of any general accounting
setup. Time
periods can be used for the definition of :

Company Financial Year

Fiscal / Tax Periods (weeks, months, quarters)

VAT / GST Periods

Sales Periods

Costs

A business is designed to be profi table. This means that you need to be able to
track all the costs involved in your business to ensure that you are not losing
money.

Some example costs that you may want to setup and track are as follows:

Raw Materials Costs

Labour Costs

Rental Costs

Electricity Costs

Quality Assurance or Regulatory Costs

Direct and Indirect Costs

Costs can also be broken down into “Direct” and “Indirect” costs.
Direct costs are costs that are easily identifiable as directly related to what
you do to produce and sell to your
customers.

Indirect costs are costs that cannot easily be directly linked to what you on sell
to your customers. Included in this would be rent, electricity or general
administration costs.

Fixed and variable Costs

Variable costs are those that rise and fall based on the amount product you produce
or sell. If you sell or produce a lot of products it will cost more than if you
produce a smaller
amount.

Fixed costs are ones that remain the same no matter how much is being produced or
sold.

Before you can calculate costs you need to define a formula of how to do it and
in OFBiz this is called a “Cost Component Calculation”.

Payment Method Type

A “Payment Method” is simply a way to define the ways in which payments can be made.
Examples include:

Cash

Cheque

Electronic Funds Transfer

Billing Account

Paypal

Financial Account

Gift Certificate

Each payment method can be linked to a different General Ledger account in the
Chart of Accounts. By doing this OFBiz will be able to help us create an accounting
transaction
based on how the payment wasmade. This is very useful if we want to
automate the creation of accounting transactions.

Invoice Item Types

An “Invoice Item Type” is another way to describe the different type of individual
line items that appear on an invoice. For example an invoice is usually made up of:

A header - which contains details of the supplier, customer, invoice date etc

Line items - which are the products, taxes, discounts etc on the invoice

A footer - which summarises the totals, taxes and discounts

Invoice item types can refer to any of these three areas on an invoice. They can
also be broken down into specific categories that allow us to classify or report
on the total or
frequency of that type.

Some examples of Invoice Item Types are:

Type of Product (Standard, Digital, Service)

Shipping or Handling Charges

Promotions (Discounted Products, Free Products)

Discounts (Product Discount, Invoice Discount, Early Payment)

Returned Items (Faulty, Replacement)

OFBiz allows us to setup a code for each of the different line item types that can
appear on an invoice. We can then link each item type to a specific General Ledger
account. By
doing this OFBiz will be able to help us create an accounting transactions
based on the item types that appear on the invoice.

This is very useful if we want to automate the creation of accounting transactions.

Rates

Rates are used to create a “pay rate” or “charge amount” that can be used in the
calculation of a task, employee salary or a service that involves people.

Rates are closely linked to the OFBiz Human Resources Manager application but are
also used across multiple OFBiz applications (Manufacturing, Asset Maintenance,
Project
Tasks, Timesheet Entry etc) where person related work tasks are required.

Foreign Exchange Rates

Foreign exchange rates are used to convert from one currency to another. A business
will usually want to work in one main currency (e.g. GBP) but will allow transactions
in
other currencies (e.g. EUR, USD). These currencies will need to be converted
to the main currency in order to generate financial reports (e.g. Balance Sheet
or Income
Statement) and most importantly to adhere to Tax Authority regulations.

GL Account Category

A “General Ledger Account Category” (or GL Account Category) is a generic term to

describe the way you can segment or classify accounts. Categories can be setup and
then
linked to the required accounts.

Another way to think about it is that it is like adding an extra tag to an account
so that you can easily retrieve that account to do any additional reporting or
processing.

In OFBiz at the time of writing, the GL Account Category has been used to implement
cost centre functionality for the Chart of Accounts.

Cost Centers

A cost centre is an area or part of an organisation where costs (direct or indirect)

can be allocated .

By default OFBiz will allocate and post 100% of any accounting value to the
specified General Ledger account. Setting up Cost Centres allows you to split the
amount across
different areas using a percentage calculation.

For example: You want to buy something that and three departments will
contribute to buying it. If the product costs $90 then each department will pay
$30 towards the cost.

OFBiz will allow you to setup the percentage that each cost centre will contribute
so that you can view and track how much each department has contributed or spent.

Human Resources
The OFBiz Human Resources system is one of the core application components and has
all of the functionality you need to manage your business employees as well as the
recruitment process. It is well integrated with other components especially
Accounting to manage Payroll and any specific employee agreements.

About Human Resources

Employee Evaluations

Employee Positions

Employees

Employments

Performance Review

Positions

Qualifications

Recruitment

Skills

Resumes

Training

Leave

Security

Global settings

Glossary

Annual Revenue
Annual revenue is the amount of revenue for a group that is reported in the Party
Group Information screenlet of the groups profile (visit Party Profile screen).

Budget
A budget is used to track spending in the company for a future period of time.
The company may have one or more budgets depending on the requirements i.e. Operating
Budget, Capital Budget. A budget has a status, type and is composed of budget line
items.

Employee
An employee is a person who has an employment relationship with your Company.

Employee Position Type

Employee Positions Type is a name that describes a position. Business Analyst,
Programmer and System Administrator are examples of position types in the OFBiz
demo
data. You can define your own position types in Global HR Settings > Position
Types.

Employment
Employment defines the relationship between your Company and a person who is an
employee. The employment relationship tracks employee benefits preferences, pay
history, and unemployment claims and agreements.

Exempt Flag
The exempt flag can be used to indicate if an employee position is exempt or non-exempt
under the fair labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Fulfillment
A fulfillment associates a person with a position. A person can fulfill more than
one position and a position can have more then one person.

Fulltime Flag
The fulltime flag can be used to indicate if an employee position is for a full
or part time position.

HR App Menu
The main menu that opens the high level features of the HR App i.e. Employees,
Employments, Employee Position etc.

Internal Organization
Internal organization is the name of a relationship between a party group and your
company. This relationship is used to filter party groups as being part of your
company to
distinguish them from other groups which are external. For example your
marketing department is an internal organization while a suppliers sales department
is not.

Number of Employees
Number of employees that are reported in the Party Group Information screenlet of
the groups profile (Visit Party Profile screen).

Party
Party is a term used to simplify collecting information that used in a common manner
by different people and things. The most common party types are people and groups.
Both people and groups have contact information. A party is identified by a unique
Party Id. Using this Id OFBiz can collect and find contact (and other information
and
processes) for both people and groups in the same way. This is why you will
often see Party Id as a field in a form or a filter as you work in OFBiz.

Party Id
The unique identifier for a party. The Id is text so in some cases you will see
an Id, created by a user, that carries some meaning i.e. Party Id DemoEmployee.
In other cases
the Id is created by OFBiz and is will be simply a number from a
sequence. In either case the Id is unique.

Qualifications
Qualifications for an individual person or organization are in the Employees Qualifications
menu item. To find and update the qualifications of people and organizations visit
Qualifications menu.

Party Qualification Type

Party qualifications define a person or organizations accomplishments that indicate
their suitability to perform a job. Qualifications are organized into qualification
groups for
the purpose of managing and reporting.

Person
Person is a human being as distinguished from a party group which is an organization.
Human beings and organizations have different attributes i.e. People have first and
last
names while groups have group names. Both person and party group are types
of parties and share information and processes common to parties.

Position
A position is a job that can be filled by more then one person over time or at
the same time. Positions are defined by a type of work. For example there may
be 20 positions in
an organization for a secretary. Each position is related to
a department in the organization. A position can me thought of as a full-time
equivalent employee (FTE). So an FTE
may be assigned to one or more positions
and position can be assigned to more then one FTEs (job sharing).

Rating
Rating is a user defined numeric rating for a skill. (See Skills Menu)

Responsibility
Responsibilities define duties assigned to a position. They are defined in
Responsibility Types and assigned in Employee Position Responsibilities.

Salary Flag
The salary flag can be used to indicate if an employee position is salaried or
paid hourly.

Skill
Skill is some ability or knowledge possessed by a person or organization that is
needed to perform a job for the company. See Skills

Skill Level
Skill level is a user defined numeric rating a skill. It is up to the user to
assign some meaning to the level. For example 1=Entry, 2=Intermediate, 3=Expert
(See Skills Menu).

Skill Group
Skill goup is a name that describes a collection of skills that have common
attributes (See Skills Menu).

Temporary Flag
A temporary flag can be used to indicate if an employee position is permanent or
temporary.

Termination Reason
The termination reason is a name describing the cause related to a termination
type e.g. Type: resigned for reason: found new job.

Termination Type
The termination type is a name for the kind of termination e.g. Resigned, fired,
retired, layoff.