Multiple billing entities let larger organisations run multiple legal or fiscal entities inside a single Qargo tenant. Operationally, teams can plan together, share resources, and maintain one set of master data.
Financially, each entity keeps its accounting separate: invoices, credit notes, tax rates, sequences, integrations, and reports remain entity-specific. This feature is ideal for an operational environment with clear per-entity billing and accounting separation.
📖 Terminology
For clarity throughout this guide, the following terms are defined.
Term | Definition |
Billing entity | A distinct legal or fiscal entity within one Qargo tenant, used to separate invoicing, tax, accounting codes, and integrations. |
Accounting integration | The external accounting system configuration set per billing entity. Invoices and credit notes are posted to the integration defined for that entity. |
Department | The link between an order and a billing entity. Assigning a department on the order determines which billing entity the charges belong to. |
Invoice sequence | Numbering rules maintained per billing entity so each entity has its own invoice and credit note sequence. |
Tax rate / Tax type | VAT or tax configuration scoped per billing entity and used to calculate taxes on charges based on customer settings and price list configuration. |
Accounting code | The per-entity code used to match customers or subcontractors to records in the accounting package. |
Self-bill scanning (sales) / Purchase invoice scanning | Document scanning flows that detect the intended billing entity (for example via VAT number). |
⚙️ How to set it up
📚 When using multiple billing entities, not every accounting integration is supported. If the accounting integration is not supported the billing entities cannot be enabled.
💬 Please reach out to your Onboarding Manager, Account Manager, or Qargo Support to enable this feature.
Creating the billing entity
Within the Organisation Settings, the option to create a new billing entity is available.
The following mandatory and optional details are required for completion:
The legal name
The VAT number
The billing location
The logo (required for document generation, ensuring the correct logo appears at the invoice level)
A code (refer to the Master Data Import/Export and API sections for further detail)
Upon saving the initial details, the fields for inputting the invoice and credit note sequence information will become accessible.
Each billing entity is assigned its own distinct invoice and credit note sequences.
Setting up the accounting configuration
The Accounting configuration page allows the setting of an accounting integration per billing entity (this can be a shared integration across multiple entities).
💬 Contact your Qargo Account Manager to confirm accounting integration compatibility.
The configuration of tax rates and accounting/nominal codes is required for each billing entity.
Default tax rates are generated based on the entity's billing location.
Nominal code rules (and dimension mappings via your Onboarding Manager, Account Executive, or Support) may also be established on a per-billing-entity basis.
Creating departments per billing entity
Orders are not linked directly to billing entities.
Orders must be assigned a department that is, in turn, linked to a specific billing entity.
Only through the assignment of a department with the correct associated billing entity will the order's charges be allocated to the appropriate billing entity.
‼️ If a department has not been configured for a billing entity, it will be impossible to assign that billing entity to an order. In this scenario, the default billing entity will be utilised by the system.
Linking your resources to the correct billing entity
Tracking resource usage across different billing entities, the system supports linking specific resources to their respective owning entities.
This allows for accurate tracking of costs; for example, when Entity A utilises the trailers belonging to Entity B.
Configuration
Navigate to RESOURCES page
Select the specific resource to configuration
Set the correct Billing Entity (the entity that owns the resource).
The same process applies to the configuration of subcontractor resources.
📚 Subcontractor companies may be reused across multiple billing entities.
Linking the transport services and add-on masters to the billing entities
Configuration for Transport Services and Add-ons includes the ability to set the tax rate and accounting code for the linked charges on a per-billing-entity basis.
This functionality proves useful for two primary reasons:
Default Settings: It facilitates the establishment of a default tax rate and accounting code when creating new rate cards or adding new charges to an existing rate cards.
Updates: When a new billing entity is added, this feature allows for the efficient update of all relevant charges with the appropriate tax rate or accounting code.
Creating and updating the relevant rate cards
📚 When a new billing entity is introduced, existing rate cards will not be usable by that entity, and any attempt to create orders will fail. The required action is to follow the guide below to either set up new rate cards or link existing ones to the new entity.
Once the transport services and other add-ons have been configured, the rate card setup process can start.
When creating a new rate card, the billing entities by which it should be used must be selected.
Multiple entities may be selected if the intention is to reuse the rate cards across several billing entities.
On an existing rate cards, the configuration permits adaptation of the billing entities by which it can be used:
Following the linking of the rate card, the charges must be configured to contain the correct tax rate and accounting codes for each billing entity:
If these parameters have already been configured on the transport service (or the add-on associated with the charge), the values will be inherited automatically.
Configuring the customers and subcontractors
On the Customer and Subcontractor pages, configuration of the accounting code and tax type is possible on a per-billing-entity basis.
This configuration is utilised by the system to determine the tax rate assigned to order charges during order creation.
Example:
An order is created using Customer John Doe and Department A, which links to Billing Entity A.
Customer John Doe is configured to use tax type No VAT for Billing Entity A.
Charges on the order will therefore be assigned the tax type No VAT.
The accounting code is used to match the company to the correct company record within the accounting package.
Example:
An invoice is created for Customer John Doe and Billing Entity A.
Customer John Doe uses accounting code ABC for Billing Entity A and DEF for Billing Entity B.
When the invoice is transmitted to the accounting integration, accounting code ABC will be used.
➡️ How to use it
Order/Revenue Flow
Once the accounting integration, departments, and rate cards have been configured, the creation and invoicing of orders for the new billing entity can start.
When creating an order, the correct department corresponding to that billing entity must be selected:
The rate card selection process will take the billing entity of the order into account. If a rate card is not configured for the specific billing entity, the order creation process will fail.
Once the order is created and the rate card is selected, charges will be generated using the configuration specific to that billing entity.
In this case, the transport charge received VAT 20% because the tax type on the customer is set to VAT for Billing Entity 1, and the rate card configuration specifies VAT 20% for that transport charge.
When the order is invoiced, the billing entity of the invoice will follow that of the order:
When creating a new invoice, the option is available to select the required billing entity:
The invoice document will reflect the billing entity on the invoice (the logo, legal name, billing location, and VAT number of the billing entity will be used):
When the invoice is then posted, it will be routed to the correct accounting integration configured for that billing entity.
Invoice self-bill scanning
Invoice generation utilising customer self-bill functionality incorporates automatic detection of the billing entity.
This detection is based on the VAT number present within the invoice document.
Detected charges that correspond to the document’s billing entity are selected automatically.
All charges detected on the document are consistently displayed.
Should a charge be incorrectly configured against a billing entity, its selection box will be disabled.
A facility is provided to resolve this configuration discrepancy simultaneously. This action updates the billing entity on the relevant charges to align with the entity selected for the invoice.
A prerequisite for this update is that:
The price list associated with the charges must be linked to the new billing entity.
The charge must hold a billing configuration entry for the new billing entity.
An associated error message will provide guidance for self-resolution of the matter.
Trip/cost flow
Following the assignment of the correct billing entities to resources (the process of linking resources to the appropriate billing entity) and the configuration of both subcontractor and internal cost price lists for that entity, resource assignment may commence.
The billing entity of the resource dictates the specific price list selection. Only price lists linked to the resource's billing entity will be considered for use.
‼️ Should no valid price list be identified, the resource allocation will not generate any charges.
The invoicing procedure mirrors that for orders. When creating a purchase invoice, selection of the appropriate billing entity is available.
When a purchase invoice is generated from existing charges, the billing entity associated with those charges is carried forward onto the invoice document.
Purchase invoice scanning
Support for billing entities has been extended to the purchase invoice scanning flows.
When a purchase invoice is created, the facility to manually select the billing entity is available.
It should be noted that several scanning flows incorporate functionality designed to automatically detect the appropriate billing entity.
Creating a new purchase invoice and uploading a document
Upon the creation of a new purchase invoice and the subsequent document upload, the system attempts to automatically detect and populate the billing entity field.
Matched charges are displayed across all billing entities, but the ability to add charges is restricted to the currently selected billing entity.
A facility remains available to move charges configured with the incorrect billing entity to the correct one.
Automatic scanning flow (Invoices > Upload purchase invoices)
The system incorporates an effort to automatically identify the billing entity in this flow.
If a billing entity cannot be located, the scan instance transitions to an error status, necessitating its manual selection.
The process will re-attempt to match the relevant charges using the newly selected billing entity.
Once both billing entity and the subcontractor are identified, a purchase invoice is automatically created. This invoice is restricted exclusively to charges associated with the identified billing entity and subcontractor.
Changing the billing entity of a charge
The changing of a charge's billing entity is permitted, subject to the support of the applicable price list.
In this case, the transport charge is currently associated with arynnes-empty-2025-01-31T08:14-37 and reassignment to Kangaroo Company is desired, the following configuration steps are necessary:
Assurance that the relevant price list is linked to Kangaroo Company.
Verification that the charge within that price list has the necessary configuration settings for Kangaroo Company.
Once all configuration requirements have been met, the billing entity can be updated, and the tax rate will be concurrently revised.
Billing entity changes are not supported for credited charges.
Credit notes
Credit notes generated from credited charges on an invoice are automatically associated with the charges' existing billing entity.
It is a rule that a credit note cannot accommodate charges pertaining to different billing entities.
The documentation for the credit note will inherently reflect the billing entity details.
Re-invoicing
During the re-invoicing of credited charges, the selection of a new billing entity is allowed, provided the associated price list for the charges is linked to that entity.
The option to switch to an alternative billing entity will only be presented where the price list configuration allows for the change.
This functionality is primarily utilised when charges were initially invoiced from an incorrect billing entity and rectification to the appropriate entity is required.