Multicompany environments

Infor LN provides extensive support for large global enterprises that comprise multiple companies and any number of locations.

If the various companies or business units are located in separate countries, you must set up a multicurrency system for the companies of the multicompany structure.

To meet the requirements of multicompany environments, LN provides these features:

  • Multicompany building blocks

    To model a multicompany environment, these building blocks are available:

    • Financial companies
      A company with at least one set of financial tables. The main function of a financial company is to register all accounting transactions that result from the activities carried out in the enterprise units that are linked to the financial company. These activities consist of the operational and logistical transactions that result from a logistic goods flow and from production, service, warehousing, and support activities.
    • Logistic companies
      A company used for logistic transactions, such as the production, purchase, sales, warehousing and transportation of goods. All the logistic data concerning the transactions is stored in the company's database.
    • Enterprise units
      A set of logically grouped entities linked to a financial company and to the same logistic company. Enterprise units are considered independent financial units within a logistical context.
    • Sites
      If multisite is implemented, sites constitute a set of logically grouped entities linked to a logistic company. Sites are considered independent logistical units within a logistical context. A site is used for logistic transactions, such as the production, purchase, sales, warehousing and transportation of goods.

    An LN multicompany environment usually consists of a structure of multiple logistic and financial companies, depending on the structure of your organization and the number of servers on which the LN databases reside.

  • Enterprise structure modeling

    You can use the Enterprise Modeler tool to model the structure of your enterprise. In this way, you can model your enterprise independent of the organization of the LN databases.

    Alternatively, you can set up the enterprise structure directly in the Enterprise Modeling Management module.

    In the Enterprise Modeling Management module, these entities are defined for the companies of your multicompany environment:

    See the User Guide for Enterprise Structures (Ucomentstructug).

  • Multicurrency systems
    In LN, a logistic company can operate in multiple countries. The LN multicurrency systems enable a company to conduct accounting in more than one currency. Amounts can be calculated and registered in up to three currencies.
  • Intralogistic-company transactions

    Sales offices, purchase offices, work centers, service centers, and warehouses are entities of logistic companies. The entities are grouped into enterprise units.

    You can define the enterprise units in one logistic company as each other’s customers and suppliers and model the goods flow and the corresponding financial relations, such as invoicing and pricing agreements between them. To accomplish this, you must define internal business partners and link the business partners to the enterprise units. A one-to-one relationship must exist between internal business partners and enterprise units.

  • Data sharing

    The companies of a multicompany structure must use consistent data. For example, you can use the same calendars, item codes, business partners, and pricing information in the various companies.

    Some data must be shared, other data can be shared if required, and still other data must not be shared at all. You can use several data sharing and replication techniques to make the same data available to companies.

  • Multicompany processing

    The multicompany structure enables enterprise-wide production planning and operations management.

    The following sections describe the multicompany functions that the various LN packages support.

Multicompany Financials

In one logistic company, you can process logistic transactions between departments, work centers, and warehouses of enterprise units that are linked to different financial companies. If the debit and credit sides of a logistic transaction are posted to different financial companies, LN can automatically create intercompany transactions between the companies.

You can aggregate the data of a group of financial companies to the financial group company for corporate accounting.

Multicompany Taxation

Tax reporting is part of the financial accounting and is restricted to one country. Therefore, the LN tax handling in a multicompany structure is similar to the tax handling in a single company environment.

Tax handling in LN includes the following:

  • Tax registration

    For tax registration, you define the various tax details for each country in the Taxation module. In the General Ledger module of Financials, you specify the ledger accounts for the tax amounts separately for each financial company. LN can post the tax amounts calculated for a tax code to different ledger accounts in the individual financial companies, for example, in a single logistic, multifinancial company structure.

  • VAT processing for intra-EU transactions
    The goods transfer between the countries of the European Union (EU) requires value-added tax (VAT) handling. Depending on the countries in which the goods are issued, delivered, and invoiced, various VAT types apply to the transactions.
  • Tax registration in a foreign country
    In some situations, transactions must be reported for taxation in a foreign country. Typically, this can happen if service items are delivered directly from the supplier to the customer at which the service activities are performed, and if spare parts that were not used are returned directly from the service location to the suppler.
Multicompany Invoicing

Invoicing in LN includes the following:

  • Sales invoicing

    For one business partner, you can combine sales invoice lines from various logistic packages such as Sales, Project, and Service on one invoice document, provided that the conditions for the composing criteria are met. Invoicing can combine financial data such as manual sales invoice data into one invoice along with other logistic data.

    Invoice documents are generated for each financial company.

  • Intercompany Trade

    For internal trade, internal financial settlements are generated if goods and the invoices for the goods are sent by or received by various entities. The entities can be departments, warehouses, and internal or external business partners. LN automatically generates the internal invoices or the settlement between the associated entities in the financial companies.

    The invoicing can occur between enterprise units of the same logistic company and different financial companies. LN uses the self-billing function to generate the internal invoices and payments.

Multicompany Enterprise Planning

You can use central multicompany planning to define a central plan that coordinates and triggers the local plans in the production companies. You can also aggregate and disaggregate the plans to different levels.

Multicompany Manufacturing

Product definition, engineering data management, production scheduling, and execution is controlled in each logistic company. Enterprise units do not affect activities that have no financial impact.

In a logistic company, routings can include work centers in different countries that belong to different enterprise units. The work-in-process (WIP) transfers are posted to the financial companies of the enterprise units.

Multicompany Sales and Procurement

During sales order entry, to see the available inventory in warehouses of your own and other logistic companies, you can use the bill of enterprise or use Enterprise Planning and Order Promising. If the sales office and the warehouse are linked to separate financial companies, LN can generate intercompany settlements between the financial companies.

LN registers some financial business partner data separately for each sales office and for each purchase office. Various enterprise units can conduct business with the same customers and suppliers.

In a multicompany structure, you can manage all or part of the purchase orders centrally. For example, you can create a central purchase contract with your suppliers, including price and discount agreements that apply to all the companies of your organization.

Multicompany Project

You must link a project to an enterprise unit and, in this way, to a financial company. If you use multiple financial companies, you can perform separate financial accounting for the projects of one logistic company.

You can aggregate the data of several subprojects to a main project for integrated project monitoring.

You can specify a project currency for each project and subproject. In this way, you can manage a project in any currency, for example, the local currency of the country where the work is performed.

Multicompany Service

Service departments and warehouses that contain spare parts and components used for service and maintenance belong to enterprise units. To perform separate financial accounting for the service departments and their warehouses, you can assign service departments and warehouses to enterprise units that are linked to different financial companies.

If material, labor, or other costs are transferred between service departments and warehouses, or from one service department to another (in the case of internal subcontracting for depot repair), LN can perform the invoicing between these departments and warehouses. In the Intercompany Trade module, you can define intercompany trade relationships with invoicing between various entities.

You can also record and process service operations in a multilogistic company environment.

Multicompany Warehousing

You can define intercompany trade relationships between enterprise units or individual warehouses of the same logistic company for the transfer of material, labor, or other costs between warehouses, and to generate invoices for these without using sales orders and purchase orders. For example, you can use this to transfer goods between warehouses in different countries.

You can define warehouse surcharges, which are added to the actual costs of the goods either when the goods are issued from a warehouse or when the goods are received.

Multicompany Freight

You can centrally manage and process freight orders (and freight order clusters), shipments, and loads across multiple locations. This process gives you a clear insight into the transport-related requirements, optimization in the handling of freight orders, consolidation and planning of loads and shipments, reduction of costs, and subcontracting of transport to carriers.

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