Multi-entity accounting software keeps a separate set of books for each legal entity in a group, records transactions between entities on both sides, eliminates them, and combines the entities into consolidated reports. QuickBooks Online and Xero treat each company or organisation as its own subscription, and Intuit Enterprise Suite adds consolidated reports and eliminations on top of Intuit's files. NetSuite OneWorld and Sage Intacct build the entities into one system. Each can invoice customers and take payments, and some connect to a CRM. Ask each vendor how a deal in your CRM becomes an invoice or a payment plan, and which entity's Stripe and bank account the payment lands in. Stripe requires a separate account for each legal entity, so that routing has to happen before the books see the money.
Checked against Intuit's, Xero's, Oracle NetSuite's, Sage Intacct's and Stripe's own documentation on 21 October 2026. Vendors change plans and features, so the changelog at the end records each update.
What does multi-entity accounting software do?
It runs the books for a group of related legal entities, such as a management company and an LLC for each location. Multi-entity accounting has four jobs, and the software exists to do them with less manual work:
- Separate books per entity. Each entity reports on its own, with its own bank accounts and its own ledger.
- Intercompany entries. When one entity pays a cost for another, charges a management fee or lends money, both sets of books record it. See intercompany transactions.
- Eliminations. Those internal amounts are removed when the entities are combined, so the group isn't shown trading with itself.
- Consolidation. The entities' results are added together into one set of reports for the group.
Oracle's NetSuite documentation puts the reason for eliminations plainly: "When subsidiaries transact, you may have to eliminate the revenue and expenses at the consolidated level to remove the effect of transactions between subsidiaries." (NetSuite: elimination subsidiaries)
Is it the same as tracking locations?
No. If every location sits inside one legal entity, you have one set of books and tell locations apart with QuickBooks classes or locations, or Xero tracking categories. QuickBooks class vs location, and Xero tracking covers that setup.
Multi-entity accounting starts when there is more than one entity, because each one has to report on its own. Whether to form an entity per location is a question for your attorney and CPA. One LLC per location, or one for all? sets out what each choice means for payments.
How does QuickBooks Online handle several entities?
Each entity is its own QuickBooks Online company. Intuit's help article says "Each company you create requires its own separate paid subscription." The companies can share one sign-in, but "their data remains completely separate." (Intuit: create or add another company)
According to that article:
- Users are invited to each company separately.
- Bank connections are made in each company. An account connected in one isn't visible in another.
- Lists such as customers and the chart of accounts can be copied into a new company, but later changes in one don't update the other.
Intuit's multi-entity layer is Intuit Enterprise Suite. Its help pages describe consolidated reports across companies, including a consolidated profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow statement, trial balance and A/R and A/P aging. "Consolidated view only works if the user has access to two or more companies." (Intuit: consolidated reports)
For intercompany work, "Intercompany journal entries and elimination accounts must be managed from the parent company." Once elimination accounts are chosen, Intuit says the suite "removes their full balances from your consolidated reports automatically." It also recommends recording intercompany transactions between two companies at a time. (Intuit: multi-entity eliminations)
How does Xero handle several entities?
Each entity is its own Xero organisation, with its own plan. Xero's common questions page says: "You can add as many organizations as you like in your Xero account. Choose a pricing plan for each one." (Xero: common questions)
The same page says Xero discounts subscriptions for more than one organisation. The discount is applied automatically when the organisations have the same subscriber email address.
If you take card payments through Stripe, the Stripe Xero integration explains how to pair each entity's Stripe account with its own organisation.
What do NetSuite OneWorld and Sage Intacct do differently?
They hold every entity in one system instead of one file per entity.
NetSuite OneWorld. Oracle's overview says OneWorld "lets you use a single NetSuite account to manage records and transactions for multiple subsidiaries," and that "Each subsidiary is treated as a unique legal entity for taxation and regulation purposes." Data "can be rolled up into consolidated reports in the currency of a parent subsidiary." (NetSuite: OneWorld overview) Eliminations post as journal entries to elimination subsidiaries, which "reverse the impact of the intercompany transactions." (NetSuite: elimination subsidiaries)
Sage Intacct. Its help describes a multi-entity company as "one or more entities under the top level," where the top level manages objects shared across entities. Entities can stand for divisions, franchises, affiliates or locations, and each can have its own base currency. (Sage Intacct: multi-entity company overview) With inter-entity account mapping set up, Intacct "automatically adds offsetting transactions into the journals of each affected entity," as due-to and due-from entries. With Consolidation, it can eliminate inter-entity receivables and payables automatically. (Sage Intacct: inter-entity transactions)
| Each entity is | Intercompany and eliminations, per the vendor's docs | |
|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Online | A separate company and subscription | Intuit Enterprise Suite, managed from the parent company |
| Xero | A separate organisation and plan | Not described on the pages checked |
| NetSuite OneWorld | A subsidiary in one account | Elimination journal entries to elimination subsidiaries |
| Sage Intacct | An entity under a top level | Offsetting due-to and due-from entries, eliminated with Consolidation |
Which one fits depends on how many entities you run, your currencies and what your CPA needs. Before you choose, have each vendor walk through the intercompany and elimination steps on your own structure.
What doesn't multi-entity accounting software cover?
Billing from the CRM deal and getting each payment into the right entity's account. Accounting software can send invoices and take payments, and some suites connect to a CRM, but their job is the books. Ask each vendor how a deal in your CRM becomes an invoice or a payment plan, and how it decides which entity the invoice comes from and which processing account and bank account the payment lands in.
On the payments side, the entity rule is strict. Stripe says: "You can only associate each account with the tax ID and legal entity of one business." Each account can pay out to its own bank account. Stripe also offers organizations for central reporting and management across several accounts of the same business. (Stripe: multiple accounts)
So a group with Denver LLC, Phoenix LLC and Portland LLC runs three Stripe accounts, each paying out to that LLC's bank account and feeding that LLC's books. If a Denver customer pays into Phoenix's account, the money and the sale sit in different entities. Fixing it is no longer a reclassification. It becomes an intercompany entry in both sets of books, then a transfer to settle it.
That is why the billing step matters to the accounting software. Clean consolidation starts with each payment landing in the entity that made the sale.
What should you set up before month end?
- One chart of accounts used by every entity, so the results combine line for line.
- A Stripe account and a bank account per entity, each connected to that entity's books.
- A rule for which entity bills each customer, written down, so nobody routes payments by hand.
- Payout reconciliation per entity. Reconciling Stripe payouts per location walks through one payout line by line.
- Shared costs and management fees charged out the same way every month. Splitting shared costs across entities covers the methods.
- An intercompany schedule: reconcile banks, reconcile intercompany balances, settle, then consolidate.
General information, not accounting or tax advice. How to present combined statements is a question for your CPA.
Changelog
- 21 October 2026: first published.
Payment plans built from the deal in HubSpot or Pipedrive, with each location paid into its own account and books.
Paycove bills every location from the deal in your CRM and pays each entity into its own Stripe account and QuickBooks or Xero file, so your accounting software starts from clean books.
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