What Is Logistic Company?
Also known as: Baan logistic company, LN logistic company
Definition
A logistic company in Baan and Infor LN is a company number that holds operational data such as items, warehouses, and sales, purchase, production and warehouse orders. Each logistic company is linked to exactly one financial company that carries its ledger.
Logistic Company Explained
Companies in Baan and Infor LN are numeric, typically three digits, and are created in the Tools company maintenance session. Each company is typed: logistic, financial, or both. A logistic company owns the operational world - item data as used locally, warehouses and inventory, sales and purchase orders, production orders, warehouse orders and the planning data that drives them. It is the container inside which day-to-day execution happens.
Every logistic company is tied to one financial company, which is what makes the logistics-to-finance posting deterministic. When a receipt, issue or shipment generates an integration transaction, LN knows which ledger it must post to because the link is defined structurally. In LN this relationship is expressed through enterprise units, which associate a logistical scope with the financial company that accounts for it.
Multiple logistic companies are used when operations genuinely need separation: different legal entities, different countries, or acquired businesses with incompatible master data conventions. The tradeoff is that anything crossing a company boundary becomes an intercompany transaction with transfer pricing, internal invoicing and reconciliation, rather than a simple warehouse transfer. That overhead is the main argument for using sites within one logistic company where the law and the business allow it.
Table sharing softens the boundaries. Two logistic companies can share item and business partner tables so master data is common while transactions stay separate. This hybrid is extremely common in practice: shared master data for consistency and reporting, separate transaction data for legal and operational independence. Getting this split right is one of the highest-leverage design decisions in an LN implementation.
Why It Matters
- The number of logistic companies drives how much intercompany trade configuration and reconciliation work you will carry forever.
- The logistic-to-financial company link determines where every logistics posting lands, so errors here surface as unexplained ledger differences.
- Splitting operations into separate companies later is far more disruptive than designing the structure correctly at the start.
- Reporting scope, planning scope and authorization scope all follow the company structure, so it shapes daily work for every user.
In Practice
A common design mistake is creating a separate logistic company for each plant when the plants share a single legal entity. Every internal movement then becomes an intercompany transaction that must be priced, invoiced and eliminated. Where the legal structure does not require separation, model plants as sites within one logistic company and keep transfers as simple warehouse transfer orders.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can one company be both logistic and financial?
Yes. A company can be defined as both, and single-entity implementations commonly do exactly that, keeping operations and the ledger in one company number. Separate logistic and financial companies become useful when several operating units share one ledger, or when legal, tax and reporting boundaries do not align neatly with operational boundaries.
How many logistic companies should an implementation have?
As few as the legal and operational requirements permit. Each additional logistic company adds intercompany trade configuration, internal invoicing, reconciliation and elimination work that continues for the life of the system. Separate legal entities, statutory reporting requirements and genuinely independent operations justify a new company; multiple plants inside one legal entity usually do not.
Related Terms
Financial Company
A financial company in Baan and Infor LN is a company number that owns the general ledger: the chart of accounts, dimensions, fiscal calendars, currency setup and all financial transactions for one or more logistic companies linked to it.
Table Sharing
Table sharing is the Baan and Infor LN mechanism that lets several companies read and write the same physical database table, so master data such as items, business partners and currencies is maintained once and used by every company that shares it.
Multisite (Infor LN)
Multisite in Infor LN is the configuration pattern for running several plants, warehouses or legal entities in one environment using sites, enterprise units and multiple companies, with intercompany trade rules that price and post transfers between them automatically.
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Infor LN Company and Enterprise Unit Design Worksheet
Plan LN companies, enterprise units, sites and currencies row by row, with user and volume totals, and export to Excel.
New to Infor LN and Baan? Start with the Infor LN and Baan guide and toolkit, or plan with Training Path Builder, Upgrade Path Planner, ERP Table and Field Explorer.
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Free tools
- Infor LN Company and Enterprise Unit Design WorksheetPlan LN companies, enterprise units, sites and currencies row by row, with user and volume totals, and export to Excel.
- Infor LN New Company Creation ChecklistStep-by-step checklist for adding a company to an on-prem Infor LN 10.x system, from planning the company number and table sharing to validating the first transactions.
Guides
- Infor LN Enterprise Modeling GuideDesign Infor LN enterprise structures. Company modeling, logistic entities, financial companies, and multi-site architecture for complex organizations.
- Infor LN Multi-Company Setup and Financial StructureComplete guide to Infor LN multi-company financial structure including enterprise modeling, company creation, shared tables, and consolidation configuration.