# Multiple companies, locations and financial years

IndustryMax models a group as one account holding several companies, where a company is a legal person — one registered firm, one GSTIN, one PAN, one state, one set of books. Under a company sit divisions, and under those a tree of stock locations. One login can hold access to several companies and switch between them, but the application is always inside exactly one company at a time: there is no all-companies mode and no report that adds two legal persons together.

*Last reviewed 2026-09-12. Canonical HTML: https://industrymax.co.in/modules/multi-company*

## The hierarchy, in the product's own words

| Level | What it is | What it owns |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant | One customer of IndustryMax. The account. | companies, users, masters |
| Company | One legal person: one registered firm, one GSTIN, one PAN, one state, one set of books, its own GST returns. | divisions, documents, books |
| Division | A grouping inside a company. Never spans two. | stores and locations |
| Location | Where stock physically sits. A tree — site, building, rack. | stock balances and movements |


> **Note:** There is no "branch" and no "business unit" in IndustryMax. Division is the only grouping below a company, and saying so precisely is what stops two people meaning different things by the same word during an implementation.


## One company at a time — and why

At every moment the application is inside exactly one company. This is enforced, not a convention, and it is not tidiness: two legal persons' figures added together is not a number anybody can file, quote or act on. A consolidated dashboard is how a group ends up with a total nobody can reconcile to any return.


- A user is granted access to the companies they may see, and switches between them.
- Purchase and sales documents are stamped with the company they belong to.
- Stock never crosses a company by accident — an inter-company movement is an explicit transfer with its own approval.
- Screens that only make sense for a group are hidden entirely from a customer that owns one company.


## What each company holds separately

- Its own GSTIN, PAN, state and registered address — and therefore its own GST treatment.
- Its own country and base currency. GST behaviour follows the country; the currency locks once documents exist, because re-denominating a book that already has documents in it is not a setting, it is a migration.
- Its own bank accounts, and its own outgoing email settings where it needs them.
- Its own accounting mode: books kept in IndustryMax, or kept in TallyPrime — decided per company and from a stated date, so a group can do one of each.
- Its own document numbering, approval rules, and reorder levels.
- Its own opening stock and opening balances.


## Financial years

- The Indian financial year, April to March, is the unit everything is filed and reported in.
- A financial year is active for the session, and documents are held to it — a document cannot quietly land in a year nobody is looking at.
- Document numbering carries the year, so a serial is unambiguous across years.
- Accounting periods inside the year can be closed, and how far back a document may be dated is a setting rather than a free-for-all.


## Questions

### Can IndustryMax manage multiple companies?

Yes. One account can hold several companies, where a company is a legal person with its own GSTIN, PAN, state and books. A user granted access to more than one switches between them with a single login.

### Can IndustryMax manage multiple factories or warehouses?

Yes. Locations form a tree under a company's divisions — site, building, rack — and stock is held per location. Transfers move stock between them, and can require approval.

### Is there a consolidated view across companies?

No, deliberately. The application is always inside exactly one company, and no report adds two legal persons together, because a figure made by summing two registered firms is not one anybody can file or act on.

### Can one company keep its books in Tally while another keeps them here?

Yes. Accounting mode is set per company and carries a date, so a group can run one firm's books in TallyPrime and another's in IndustryMax without either system guessing which transactions are whose.

### How are financial years handled?

The April-to-March Indian financial year is the reporting unit. A year is active for the session, documents are held to it, and the year appears in document numbering so a serial is unambiguous.

## Related

- https://industrymax.co.in/modules/accounting
- https://industrymax.co.in/tally-integration
- https://industrymax.co.in/modules/inventory
- https://industrymax.co.in/security