Apache OFBiz Framework Documentation

The Accounting component in Apache OFBiz provides a full-featured module for financial accounting and the setup of internal organizations. It is designed to enable organizations to execute financial accounting and reporting through several core sub-modules.

Core Modules:

• Accounting: General ledger and financial management.
• Accounts Payable: Managing money owed by the organization.
• Accounts Receivable: Managing money owed to the organization.

Key Features:

• Invoicing
• AR (Accounts Receivable) & AP (Accounts Payable)
• Tax management
• General transactions

The order component is a comprehensive module within Apache OFBiz designed for managing the full lifecycle of business requests. It provides capabilities for:

• Request Management: Handling initial customer or business requests.
• Quote Management: Generating and managing price quotes.
• Order Management: Processing and tracking formal orders.
• Requirements Management: Managing specific business or product requirements.

The OFBiz Accounting system is built on generally accepted principles, including double-entry accounting and a General Ledger with hierarchical accounts, journals, and transaction posting. The architecture follows the OMG GL standard with AR/AP (Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable) extensions, making it compatible with standards like ebXML and OAGIS.

Key capabilities include:

• Multi-organization Management: Supports multiple companies, subsidiaries, or departments. Each organization can manage its own subset of the Master Chart of Accounts and maintain its own set of Journals.
• Automated Transactions: While manual journals are supported, the system is designed to automatically create and post transactions triggered by business events such as purchase/sales orders, invoices, inventory transfers, payments, and receipts.

The Catalog Manager is used to manage all product-related data within the company, including items that are purchased, sold, built, or used. It supports both physical and digital products.

Key data managed via the Catalog Manager includes:

• Product categories
• Catalogs
• Pricing
• Product IDs
• Product configurations

The Sales Force Automation (SFA) application is designed to support the process of converting leads into orders. It provides a specialized interface for users to manage their specific sales pipeline, including leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities.

Key capabilities include:

• Listing leads, contacts, accounts, and opportunities assigned to or created by the user.
• Creating new parties or assigning existing parties to oneself.
• Managing the sales lifecycle from initial lead to sales opportunity.

Note on Data Integrity: The SFA component relies heavily on the core Party application. For SFA to function correctly, party records must be complete. Specifically, the role field is critical; at a minimum, the roles lead, contact, and Account should be defined for relevant records.

The OFBiz Human Resources (HR) system is a core application component designed to manage business employee processes. It provides functionality for:

• Organizational Hierarchies: Managing the structure of the company.
• Recruitment: Handling the hiring process.
• Training & Evaluation: Managing employee skills, qualifications, and performance reviews.
• Payroll Integration: It is deeply integrated with the Accounting component to manage payroll and specific employee agreements.

The application is built upon the core OFBiz Party concept, which allows for a unified way to manage both individuals (employees, customers, contractors) and organizations (departments, companies) and the relationships between them.