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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2024-03-08
Setup Considerations: Multicompany Procurement

Setup Considerations: Multicompany Procurement

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of multicompany procurement. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

At the tenant level, you can enable multicompany on requisitions and purchase orders. This setup centralizes procurement by enabling you to order on behalf of other companies with a single document.
Workday automatically supports multiple companies on supplier invoices.

Business Benefits

You can create consolidated requisitions and purchase orders for goods, services, and project-based services on behalf of other companies. This business practice reduces the number of purchase orders sent to suppliers, saving you time during reconciliation.

Use Cases

  • Request goods and services for multiple companies with 1 requisition.
  • Order for multiple companies with 1 purchase order, simplifying workflow.
  • Match multicompany invoices to multicompany purchase orders for accurate reports.
  • Expenses and assets post accurately based on the companies at the line and header level, reducing accounting workloads.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
How does your business use supplier contracts to procure?
When you consolidate requisitions across supplier contracts at the tenant level, create a supplier contract for a company hierarchy that includes the companies for which you procure.
For multicompany transactions that don't consolidate across supplier contracts, the contract pricing at the header applies to all companies at the line.
How does your business use intercompany?
Create an intercompany relationship between companies to use them on multicompany transactions.
You can create this relationship on the
Edit Company Intercompany Profile
task.
Set up the procurement company as the parent company.
How do you edit and approve lines on spend transactions?
You can edit the companies on requisition lines during the creation and approval process. You can't edit the companies at the line level on sourcing tasks.
Does your business use Inventory?
For Inventory, you can't edit the company at the line on replenishment or par-replenishment requisitions.
For replenishment-type orders:
  • Configure the company that orders on behalf of the location on the
    Maintain Inventory Sites
    and
    Maintain Par Location
    tasks.
  • You can only add requisition lines and purchase order lines that are for inventory or par companies.
To set up the procurement company for inventory locations, you must also have the company setup as the parent company on the
Edit Company Intercompany Profile
task.
How does accounting work for multicompany transactions?
Using the
Create Account Posting Rule Set
task, set up these account posting rules:
  • Intercompany Receivables
    , which posts for the parent company.
  • Intercompany Payables
    , which posts for the children companies.
You can view accounting on multicompany procurement transactions on these tabs, which list accounting for each unique company on the purchase order or requisition:
  • View Accounting for Purchase Order
  • View Accounting for Requisition
You can view all liquidated journals, but you must have security permissions for that company to view its operational journal.

Recommendations

  • Select the
    Requisition
    and
    Purchase Order
    options on the
    Enable Multi-Company
    prompt on the
    Edit Tenant Setup - Financials
    task.
  • Quickly run receipt accruals for companies on purchase order lines by using a company hierarchy of all the companies on the
    Create Receipt Accrual
    task.

Requirements

To enable multicompany for requisitions, enable multicompany for purchase orders.
Using the
Edit Intercompany Company Profile
task, create an intercompany relationship between companies for which you procure. Select the procurement company as the parent company.
You must have security permissions for the company at the header level to use the
Put Away Inventory
task and to view these documents:
  • Purchase Order
  • Receipt
  • Requisition
  • Invoice

Limitations

You can't disable this feature once you have active multicompany purchase orders or requisitions.
You can't change the companies on order lines on sourcing tasks or after you approve the purchase order. You also can't change the companies on lines on these resulting documents:
  • Receipts
  • Returns
  • Invoices
You can't change the company on replenishment-type orders.
You must have security permissions for the company at the receipt header to use the
Put Away Inventory
task.
On the
Roll Forward Procurement Documents
task, the
Balances
tab and these fields display blank when a company at the document line has a different currency than the company at the header:
  • Amount Invoiced
  • Total Amount
  • Total PO Amount

Tenant Setup

On the
Edit Tenant Setup- Financials
task, select
Requisition
and
Purchase Order
on the
Enable Multi-Company
prompt.

Security

To view and edit multicompany documents, you need security permissions for the company at the header. You can also view all liquidated journals, but you need security permissions for that company to view its operational journal.
You can route approvals based on the companies at the line level when you add these subprocesses to the requisition and purchase order business processes:
  • Requisition Intercompany Event
  • Purchase Order Intercompany Event
For each company on a multicompany document, Workday displays lines that need review for assigned reviewers in My Tasks.

Business Processes

To route transactions for review and approval based on companies on requisition lines:
  1. Configure the
    Requisition Event
    business process and security policy in the Procurement functional area.
  2. Configure the
    Requisition Intercompany Event
    business process and security policy in the Procurement functional area.
  3. Add the
    Initiate Requisition Intercompany Event
    action step to the
    Requisition Event
    business process.
To route transactions for review and approval based on companies on purchase order lines:
  1. Configure the
    Purchase Order Event
    business process and security policy in the Procurement functional area.
  2. Configure the
    Purchase Order Intercompany Event
    business process and security policy in the Procurement functional area.
  3. Add the
    Initiate Purchase Order Intercompany Event
    action step to the
    Purchase Order Event
    business process.

Reporting

You can use Workday reports or custom reports for these documents with multiple companies:
  • Change Order
  • Purchase Order
  • Requisition
  • Supplier Invoice

Integrations

These web services support procurement documents with multiple companies:
  • Get Purchase Orders
  • Get Purchase Order Change Orders
  • Get Receipts
  • Get Returns
  • Get Supplier Invoices
  • Submit Purchase Order
  • Submit Purchase Order Change Order
  • Submit Receipt
  • Submit Supplier Invoice

Connections and Touchpoints

Features
Considerations
Create Receipts
To view and edit multicompany receipts, you must have security permissions for the company at the header.
Put Away Inventory
To use the
Put Away Inventory
task, you must have security permissions for the company at the receipt header.
Workday automatically puts away items based on the companies at the receipt lines.
Replenish Inventory
Workday populates the companies as read-only on multicompany documents for replenishment.
For replenishment transactions, Workday populates the company at the line based on the replenishment procurement company setup on the
Maintain Inventory Site
task.
For par replenishment transactions, Workday populates the company at the line based on the source requisition company setup on the
Maintain Par Location
task.
Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.