“Three companies, one manager, three files”: what gets built in an application in 2027 for a group of companies, shared reference data, own data, mirrored inter-company transfers, group view

Shared by the group. Customers: one record per customer, phone as key following the single customer guide, visible to Algiers, to Sétif or to both, with receivables and a limit per company, because the debt to Algiers is not the debt to Sétif, following the customer credit guide. Products: one catalogue, model, variants, lots, with a price and availability per company, and photos written once. People: one account per person and one role per company; the manager sees all three, a Sétif seller sees only Sétif.

Own to each company. Numbering series, one per document type and per company, imposed by the company record and impossible to mix, following the printing guide; bank accounts; depots and their stock, following the stock guide; price lists; document header and mentions, set with each company’s accountant, the Algiers one, the Sétif one and the Paris one; accounting exports, one per firm, every month. The Paris company collects in euros and follows the two-currency guide. Companies, headcounts and numbers are a constructed example.

Company. A mandatory column on every document table, and a database constraint that refuses a document without a company or mixing two companies in the same document; currency, depots, accounts and number series are carried by the company. Shared reference data. Customers, products, suppliers, people: one record for the group, and rule tables per company, visibility, price, receivables, role; a customer record is not copied, it is seen. Rights. One account per person, one role per company, following the roles guide; the company selector is locked for whoever has only one; the audit log says in which company every action took place.

Inter-company. A transfer, a sale or a service between two group companies writes two mirrored sets of documents, once; intra-group customer and supplier accounts are flagged as such. Group view. A dashboard per company and for the group, following the dashboard guide; intra-group excluded; currencies never added, with an equivalent at a frozen rate for reading only; one export per accountant, dated and replayable, following the integration guide. The group’s servers and data follow the hosting guide; a company in France may require where its data lives, and the company dimension makes that possible.

Sétif is short of 200 units, Algiers has 640. The manager creates an inter-company transfer at the transfer price written by the manager with the accountant. The application writes, at Algiers, a delivery note, a sales invoice to Sétif and a stock issue of the lot concerned; at Sétif, a reception, a purchase invoice that is the exact mirror of the sales invoice, never retyped, and a stock receipt of the same lot, following the lot traceability guide. The truck leaves with the delivery note, Sétif receives by scan, and any gap is recorded on the reception, not silently corrected.

The same evening, the group view tags the pair intra-group: Algiers’ receivable from Sétif and Sétif’s payable to Algiers cancel out, and the sale does not count in group revenue, because, following the common definition of consolidated accounts, a balance between group companies is offset by the reverse balance, and an internal sale is not a sale of the group. The two monthly exports, Algiers’ and Sétif’s, each carry their own documents. Which transfer price to choose and what each company declares are questions for the accountant and counsel; numbers, quantities and amounts are a constructed example.

The customer exists in three programs: one group record with phone as key, and visibility and receivables per company. Sétif invoices with Algiers’ numbers: the series is imposed by the document’s company; getting it wrong is impossible, not forbidden. Algiers delivers Sétif, nobody invoices: the inter-company transfer writes mirrored documents, and stock and lot are tracked on both sides.

The manager adds dinars and euros: the group view reads per currency, and the equivalent at a frozen rate serves reading only, as in the two-currency guide. The Sétif seller sees Algiers’ prices: role and grid per company, selector locked. Three accountants, three files redone: one export per company, from the same source, dated and replayable; the founder in France reads the group in the remote management guide.

Create the company: name, currency, depots, bank accounts, logo. Numbering and documents: series per document type, header and mentions, set with that company’s accountant; it is the accented beat, because it is not done alone and it no longer changes after the first invoice. Rights: who sees it, who sells in it, who collects in it, one role per person.

Reference data: which customers and products it sees, its price lists. Take-over: opening balances per customer, stock per depot, open documents, with the same dry run as the import guide. First export: one month of documents to its accountant, and its feedback, before opening the company to sellers. A company coming from an old program also follows the migration guide.

Week 1, rules: the list of companies and their currencies, what is shared and what is own, the transfer price, who sees what; with the manager and each company’s accountant. Weeks 2 and 3, company and reference data: the company dimension on every document, series, depots, accounts; the merge of customers and products from the old programs into one group reference, with proposed matching, dry run and refused lines. Week 4, rights: role per company, selector, group manager and accountant, audit log per company.

Week 5, inter-company: mirrored transfer and sale between companies, intra-group balances, tracked lots. Week 6, group view and exports: board per company and for the group, intra-group excluded, currencies kept apart, export per accountant. Week 7, switch-over: one company first, with its sellers and its accountant, then the next ones; the old programs go read-only, not to the bin.

Multi-company or multi-tenant, what is the difference?

A multi-tenant SaaS isolates customers who must share nothing. A multi-company group wants to share, customers, products, people, and separate only what must be, numbers, accounts, depots, documents. The construction is different: a company dimension on documents, not a database per customer.

Why merge customers and products?

Because a customer who exists three times has three balances, three phones and three histories, and a product in triplicate has three stocks and three prices. The merge is done once, in the second and third weeks, with a dry run; afterwards, it is no longer possible.

How do you avoid mixing invoice numbers?

The series is carried by the document’s company, imposed by its record; a user does not choose it. Each company’s series and mentions are set with its accountant in the first week, before the first invoice.

What happens when one company sells to another?

The application writes two mirrored sets of documents, sale at one, purchase at the other, with stock and lot tracked on both sides, and flags the intra-group balances. The transfer price is a rule written with the accountant; this guide does not say which to choose.

Can dinars and euros be added in the group view?

No. The group view reads per currency; an equivalent at a frozen rate may be shown for reading, never added to real amounts, following the rule already set in the two-currency guide.

And each country’s tax rules?

Outside this guide. What each company must show on its documents, declare and consolidate is settled with its accountant and counsel; the application prints and exports what was decided.

How long to set this up?

Seven weeks in the typical calendar, the first without code and two for the company dimension and the merge of reference data. Two companies in the same country take less; three companies in two countries with two currencies take all seven.