Glossary: Onboarding
Company profile
A company profile is the record of a business customer in a seller's B2B system. In Shopify it is a company: the parent organization for one or more company locations, holding contacts, addresses, tax details and payment terms.
In detail
Wholesale buyers are businesses with several stores, buyers and addresses. A consumer account, with one person and one address, does not fit. A company profile groups what you need to know about the business: legal name, locations, the people who buy, billing and shipping addresses, tax ID and exemption, payment terms, the prices they see, notes and an ID, plus the order history.
The structure has three levels. A company has locations, and each location has contacts. A retail chain is one company with 12 shops as locations, each with its own delivery address and perhaps its own tax details and terms. A head buyer can order for the whole company, while a store manager orders only for one location.
Good practice keeps records clean. Give each company a unique ID, ideally the number your ERP already uses. Keep one profile per legal entity so you do not create duplicates. Set terms and tax details at the level where they apply, and use tags or catalogs to control prices.
Review profiles on a schedule: contacts change, tax exemptions expire and terms are renegotiated. An out-of-date profile causes wrong invoices and wrong taxes.
Example
A pharmacy group has one company profile with 12 locations. Each location has its own delivery address and tax ID, the head buyer can order for all 12, and each store manager orders only for their own location on Net 30 terms.
On Shopify
In Shopify's native B2B, a company is the parent organization for one or more company locations, and a location is the business you are selling to. A company can have up to 10,000 locations, and each location can have its own tax ID, tax exemptions, shipping address, billing address and payment terms. Contacts have the role Ordering only or Location admin. Companies and locations support an external ID, such as an ERP ID, for syncing, and they are available on all plans.
Sources: Shopify Help Center: B2B companies (read October 4, 2026); Shopify Help Center: B2B company contacts (read October 4, 2026); Shopify Help Center: Shopify B2B features by plan (read October 4, 2026).
In BSS B2B apps
BSS B2B Solution can target pricing rules to Shopify company locations on the Advanced plan and above, so prices follow the location a buyer is signed in under. Approving a registration form applicant does not create a Shopify company, so you set companies up in the Shopify admin. See the pricing page for plans.
Learn more
Read the Customer onboarding hub for guides, use cases and setup docs, or the complete Shopify B2B guide.