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REST API vs OData Transactions Question

  • January 30, 2026
  • 3 replies
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zherring
Freshman I
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At the recent Acumatica Summit 2026 I heard something along the lines that OData data pulls do not consume transactions or do not count against the api calls...something like this so correct my terminology if I am wrong.

With this in mind, our developer team is creating a custom mobile app to do more advanced scanning than the WMS system can handle. As we have been doing this, I am setting up endpoints and testing through Postman that every call the app might make it covered. Some of these calls are just GET requests to a GI that I have set up on the endpoint (some of the GIs have parameters as well). Is it best practice to instead of putting the GIs on an endpoint, to just ‘expose to OData’ and do an OData call? This would presumably cut down on our api calls if my above thoughts are correct. Or are the differences negligible? 

We are trying to ‘standardize’ how this app accesses Acumatica so currently just putting everything onto one endpoint with different entities. Should we change all of the GI GET requests to just pull through OData?

Best answer by Dmitrii Naumov

@zherring 

Yes, ideally OData is preferred for this scenario.

The format of the response is a bit different, but should not be an issue. 

The parameters you can also send via OData, see here https://help.acumatica.com/(W(7))/Help?ScreenId=ShowWiki&pageid=fbc48ffc-0c45-472b-aab8-853184d6336d

3 replies

Dmitrii Naumov
Acumatica Moderator
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  • Acumatica Moderator
  • January 30, 2026

@zherring generally, OData requests are better optimized for data retrieval and should be preferred. It’s indeed the case that the API requests per minute limit is not applied there. So theoretically, it’s beneficial to switch to OData requests for GIs at least. However, in practice, it depends. The difference may be negligible. 


zherring
Freshman I
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  • Author
  • Freshman I
  • January 30, 2026

@Dmitrii Naumov Perfect.
So say we have a GI to pull all user preferences from the User Profile, which should not change much over time, it would be best to ‘Expose via OData’ and pull through that rather than doing a PUT onto the endpoint that points to the same GI? I also believe that we would have the same answer even if we have parameters on the GI?


Dmitrii Naumov
Acumatica Moderator
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  • Acumatica Moderator
  • Answer
  • January 30, 2026

@zherring 

Yes, ideally OData is preferred for this scenario.

The format of the response is a bit different, but should not be an issue. 

The parameters you can also send via OData, see here https://help.acumatica.com/(W(7))/Help?ScreenId=ShowWiki&pageid=fbc48ffc-0c45-472b-aab8-853184d6336d