How to Implement company_dependent=True in Odoo?


✅ What is company_dependent=True?

In Odoo, setting a field with company_dependent=True ensures that the field value can differ per company, while still using the same record across companies.

It is especially useful in multi-company environments where shared master data (like products or accounts) needs to behave differently per company for specific fields (e.g., price, taxes).


📌 Real Use Case

Suppose you have a product used across multiple companies, but the cost price or tax varies by company.

You can use company_dependent=True to let Odoo manage separate values automatically per company.


🧩 How It Works

  • Internally, Odoo creates ir.property records to store the value per company.
  • When you access the field, it fetches the value based on the current company context.
  • When writing, it updates the value only for that specific company.


🔧 Example: Multi-company Cost Price​


from odoo import fields, models

​

class ProductTemplate(models.Model):

    _inherit = 'product.template'

​

    standard_price = fields.Float(

        string="Cost",

        company_dependent=True,

        help="Cost price of the product for each company."

    )


  • standard_price will now have different values per company.
  • Accessing it with self.env.company context will return the correct one.


🔄 Setting Values Per Company


# Set cost for company A

product.with_company(company_a).standard_price = 100.0


# Set cost for company B

product.with_company(company_b).standard_price = 120.0​


  • Values will be isolated per company, using the same product record.



✅ Summary Table


Feature

Behavior

Field Isolation per Company

✅ Yes

Record shared across companies

✅ Yes

Stored via

ir.property

Required context for access

Automatically handled by env.company

Common fields example

standard_price, property_account_income_id



⚠️ Important Notes

  • company_dependent=True works only for simple field types (e.g., Float, Many2one).

  • It should be used only when a field needs to vary by company.

  • Do not use it for fields that are meant to be globally consistent across companies.