Multi-company ERP: several entities in one database

The day a company creates a second entity, a foreign subsidiary or a holding, the temptation is to install a second tool. Two years later there are two customer databases, two catalogues, and a consolidation done by hand every quarter. A multi-company ERP avoids that duplication.

What is separate, what is shared

Sharing is decided case by case. A common catalogue simplifies life if the companies sell the same products; separate customer records are a must if each company has its own customers and terms.

Inter-company flows

When company A sells to company B in the same group, you need a sales invoice at A and a purchase invoice at B. Odoo can create the matching document automatically: the sales order at A produces the purchase order at B. Odoo’s documentation on multi-company describes the setting. The automation avoids gaps between the two sets of accounts, the bane of consolidations.

Rights

A user can have access to one company, several, or all. The group controller sees everything; the subsidiary’s sales rep sees only theirs. These rules are written before configuration, with the rest of the access rights.

The licence cost

On Odoo Enterprise, managing several companies is part of the Custom plan, roughly twice the Standard plan’s price per user according to the publisher’s pricing page. Our calculation of the cost of Odoo over three years details the effect on the budget. On Community, multi-company is in the core, without subscription, with the limits of that edition described in Odoo Community or Enterprise.

Dolibarr offers multi-company through an add-on module that keeps entities more separate. It suits companies that share little data.

The traps

• Starting single-company and adding the second later without planning for it: numbering, accounts and rights have to be redone.
• Sharing everything by default: a sales rep sees another company’s prices, a customer receives an invoice with the wrong letterhead.
• Forgetting currencies: a subsidiary outside the euro zone needs exchange rates and conversion differences handled in the tool.
• Neglecting consolidation: the ERP produces data per company; group consolidation remains accounting work to scope.

One database, or several

Some companies prefer one database per company, for full separation. It is simpler to understand, but you lose automatic inter-company flows, shared records and the group view. The choice depends on the volume of exchanges between companies: if they are rare, separate databases are enough; if they are daily, a common database saves a lot of time. A common database can then be partitioned with rights, whereas two separate databases can only be brought together later with a full migration.

What to write before configuring

Three lists are enough: data shared between companies and data specific to each, inter-company flows with their invoicing rule, and the rights of each role per company. Written during scoping, they avoid costly rework and letterhead errors on invoices. The complete ERP guide details the other steps, and our CRM and ERP offer proposes Odoo in three fixed-price tiers, with multi-company priced into the scope.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Multi-company environment, Odoo documentation (new tab)odoo.com