A business that is not a single company but a group of companies can run them all in one Odoo. This piece is about setting up a multi-company environment.
What a multi-company environment is
A multi-company environment is one Odoo system running more than one company: a group of companies, each its own entity, all run within the one system. Odoo supports this, so a business that is genuinely a group of companies does not need a separate system for each; it can run the group, the several companies, in one multi-company Odoo environment.
What setting it up involves
Setting up a multi-company environment means configuring Odoo to run the group's genuine companies: the several companies set up, each as its own entity, within the one system, and the environment configured so the group can be run coherently. The setup should reflect the group's genuine structure, the genuine companies, how they genuinely relate. Set up to match the genuine group structure, the multi-company environment lets Odoo run the group as it genuinely is.
Each company its own entity, the group coherent
The defining quality of a well-set-up multi-company environment is that it holds two things together. Each company is genuinely its own entity, with its own books, treated as the separate company it genuinely is. And the group is coherent: the several companies are in one system, and the group can be seen and run as a whole. A multi-company environment set up well gives the business both, per-company correctness, each company treated as itself, and a coherent group, the whole seen and run together. This is the value of running the group in one Odoo: per-company correctness and group coherence, rather than a scatter of separate systems.
The honest first question
An honest and important point. A multi-company environment is for a business that genuinely is a group of companies. It is more involved to run a multi-company environment than a single company, and a business should set one up because it genuinely is a group of separate companies, not otherwise. The first question in setting up a multi-company environment is whether the business genuinely is a group of companies that warrants it. Where it genuinely is, the multi-company environment is the right way to run the group; where the business is genuinely a single company, a single-company setup is simpler and correct. Set up a multi-company environment because the business's genuine structure calls for it.
The takeaway
Setting up a multi-company environment in Odoo runs a group of companies in one system, each company its own entity, the group coherent. It is set up by configuring Odoo to run the group's genuine companies, reflecting the genuine group structure. A well-set-up multi-company environment gives per-company correctness, each company treated as itself, and group coherence, the whole seen and run together. The honest first question is whether the business genuinely is a group of companies that warrants it; set one up because the genuine structure calls for it. For how we approach Odoo, see our ERP practice.