Understanding Odoo’s contact logic and Why It Can Break Your Data
- Dr. Themo Voswinckel
- Jul 24
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 1
Odoo is a powerful CRM and ERP system, but its contact data model can lead to complications.
In most CRM or ERP systems, companies and contacts are stored as separate entities, often linked by an explicit relationship. Salesforce or HubSpot, for example, has a clear Account and Contact structure.
This separation makes it easier to maintain data integrity, sync relationships, and build well-structured CRM systems. Odoo, however, stores everything - companies, people, contacts - in a single model called res.partner.
In this post, we’ll break down:
How Odoo’s contact model works
Why it creates integration challenges
How to handle it properly if you’re syncing data
Odoo’s res.partner Model
In Odoo, every contact, whether it is a company or a person, is stored in the same model: res.partner.
There are two key fields that define what type of contact a record represents:
is_company: a boolean flag that indicates whether the record is a company (true) or a person (false)
parent_id: if set, this links a person to their associated company
In practice, this means:
A contact person with a parent_id refers to the company they belong to
A contact person without a parent_id is an independent contact
Companies have is_company set to true and typically do not have a parent_id
However, Odoo’s API responses do not separate persons from companies automatically.
Both types appear together in list queries unless you specifically filter for is_company or check for parent_id.
That’s why processing contact data from Odoo can get messy, especially if your system needs a clear separation between companies and people, like most ERP or CRM systems do. The way to achieve that with Odoo is by using the is_company flag and the parent_id relationship.
We’ll explain in detail how to apply this logic in section IV.
Why res.partner Can Break Your Data?
Without the right logic in place, syncing contact data from Odoo can easily go wrong:
People may be classified as companies in your system
Companies might appear without their associated contacts
The relationship between people and companies gets lost, meaning your system cannot represent who works where
This does not just create messy data, it directly impacts data quality:
Attribute mismatches: company-specific fields might accidentally end up on contact records, and vice versa
Incomplete records: some information could get lost entirely if it does not fit the assumed structure of your system. For example, a personal LinkedIn profile might mistakenly be attached to a company or skipped entirely if the person-to-company link wasn’t mapped.
Example:
If you treat every contact in Odoo as a standalone entity:
A contact person with a parent_id pointing to a company would still be synced as an independent company
This could lead to the same company being duplicated multiple times, once for each associated person
The result is a broken data foundation that is hard to trust or work with across CRM, marketing, or analytics systems.
How to Handle Odoo’s Contact Logic?
To sync Odoo contact data reliably, here’s the logic you need to implement:
Check is_company
Use this flag to determine if the record should be treated as a company or a person
Use parent_id to map relationships
If parent_id is present, the contact is linked to a company
If it is missing, the record is either an independent contact or a company (based on is_company)
Implement conditional sync logic
For reads:
Apply logic to distinguish persons and companies
Create clear links between persons and their parent company
For writes:
Respect these relationships when creating or updating records to avoid data conflicts or duplication
Be mindful when querying
List queries will always return a flat mix of persons and companies
Always post-process the data to structure it meaningfully before syncing or storing
This approach is based on the real-world experience of our dev team.
The Easy Way to Handle Odoo Contact Sync Issues
We built a unified logic layer in our Maesn Odoo integration that handles all of this complexity for you:
Automatically separates companies from persons
Links persons to their companies using parent_id
Prevents duplicates and ensures proper classification of entities
As a result, when you sync contact data from Odoo via Maesn, you get a structured and usable format, without needing to decode the res.partner logic yourself.
It also means handling Odoo data is just as easy and consistent as with any other API we support. You can integrate and maintain Odoo contact data alongside your other systems, without custom workarounds or constant adjustments.
If you don’t have the time or patience to build this logic yourself, we’ve already done the work.
Summary / TL;DR
Odoo’s res.partner model stores both companies and people without clear separation
To sync correctly:
Use is_company to classify entity type
Use parent_id to link persons to companies
Without this logic, your sync will create messy data, duplicates, or attribute mismatches
Or, if you want to skip the hassle, you can rely on Maesn’s Odoo integration — structured, production-ready, and unified like any modern API
