Multiple companies in one database

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Posted on by Marsha Pavelich

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I have seen this topic discussed on this forum, but I am still unclear about it. We currently have 26 companies, each with a different federal tax ID and each in its own database. Can these be combined to be in one database? Is that the most common way to set them up?

If these are all set up in one database, can they all use the same vendor file?

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Derek Albaugh on at

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RE: Multiple companies in one database

Hello Marsha,

I checked with resources here and while it may be possible to combine 26 companies into one database, in regards to a Microsoft/Dynamics GP support point of view, any issues you run into could end up as something we wouldn't support.

Especially if you're using third-party products such as mentioned on this forum, we'd probably end up referring you to them for support.

If at all possible, I'd highly recommend setting this up in a test environment to make sure it works as expected, before putting it into a production environment.

Thanks,

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drummerboy_10 on at

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RE: Multiple companies in one database

Marsha -

As Matt suggested, I would suggest you investigate Binary Stream's Multi-Entity Management product to consolidate your 26 different entities into a single database.

We use MEM with Dynamics GP 2015 and have 70 different entities the same database. This allows my accounting group to do all the accounting for 70 entities in single database. It not only saves time during month and year-end close, but also helps with integrations and reporting. We centralize our AP so everything is paid for all entities out of a single database. Managing that many companies is too painful for any accounting group.

Regarding the federal ID numbers - I assume you're talking about these fields in the Company setup window?

I would certainly check with Binary Stream, but even if they can't accommodate the multiple number of Federal Tax ID's, you could use Extender to build a window to house all these numbers.

If you go with MEM, I'm going to also suggest you look at Company Data Archive by Professional Advantage. The problem my company ran into they were packing an enormous amount of transactions into a single database which caused our database to grow to 300GB in size which also caused issues with Management Reporter. Company Data Archive allowed us to peel off historical years into a separate database and now we have a process where we keep two historical and one active year in the production database at a time, All other years have been archived into another database.

Hope this information helps.

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Marsha Pavelich 632 on at

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RE: Multiple companies in one database

In answer to (some of) your questions:

If they are individual companies would they all share a common Vendor File? They do not currently share a common vendor file or consistent vendor numbers. This would be a separate project.

If they share a common Vendor file, do you process the Payables on a consolidated basis? Not sure about this one.

What are the advantages of ONE big database? We are getting software from a 3rd party and they have requested that we convert our existing 26 databases to one. From my personal standpoint, some things such as Crystal Reports would be easier.

What is the Disadvantage of the individual company databases? The time it takes to do it

Do they all have the same year end? yes

Do they all have the same GL structure? yes, the same structure.

Do they all share the same Sales Customers? Payables and GL only. No customers

My real question is, can I have multiple companies with different federal tax ID numbers in one database?

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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RE: Multiple companies in one database

Marsha, just to play devils advocate, might I ask the following.

If they are individual companies would they all share a common Vendor File?

If they share a common Vendor file, do you process the Payables on a consolidated basis?

What are the advantages of ONE big database?

What is the Disadvantage of the individual company databases?

Do they all have the same year end?

Do they all have the same GL structure?

Do they all share the same Sales Customers?

I have a bunch more, but this is a good start. Look forward to your answer.

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MattPaulen 6,912 on at

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RE: Multiple companies in one database

I'd suggest looking at Binary Stream's Multi-Entity Management for this.

binarystream.com/.../multi-entity-management

It will allow you to report 1099s based on the entity, centralized ap processing if necessary, as well as automatic due to/froms. You can control which entities have access to which vendors/customers and even which users have access to certain entitities.

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Community Member on at

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RE: Multiple companies in one database

We created a SQL table which combines all the companies. Not sure how you'd do this in GP if they have different tax id's

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