How it works
Each entity, often called a subsidiary or company, has its own ledger, currency, tax settings and sometimes chart of accounts, but shares vendors, items and reporting with the rest of the group. Transactions are tagged with their entity, intercompany activity is tracked between them, and reports roll up across entities with currency translation and eliminations.
Example
A company with entities in the US, Canada and the UK runs all three in Sage Intacct. Each closes in its own currency, and the group reports in US dollars.
In integrations
Multi-entity support decides many mid-market deals. The Unify ERP API is designed to read and write per subsidiary, carrying entity ids, currencies and intercompany links on every relevant object, so your product respects the boundaries between a customer's entities. Ignoring entities in an integration can post a transaction to the wrong company, which is hard to unwind. Respect each customer's entity structure from the first read.