Set Up Legal Entities

A legal entity is a representation of your company and gives your Coupa customers the information they need to do business with you, including addresses and payment methods (previously referred to as remit-to details). You may have several legal entities associated with your business. For example, if you have regional offices or subsidiaries which deal with your customers through Coupa, you may want to have more than one legal entity to better represent the structure of your organization. 

Legal entities are registered, seen, edited and merged by account administrators. 

Create a legal entity in the CSP

When you register with the Coupa Supplier Portal (CSP) for the first time, the assistant guides you through the creation of a legal entity and an associated payment method as part of the onboarding process.

1. From the top navigation bar, select Business Profile > Legal Entities.
2. Click the Create button under the Legal Entities header.
3. Fill out the form:
   1. Legal Entity Name: Official name of your business that is registered with the local government.
   2. Country or Region: Country or region where your business is located. You cannot change this field after you have saved the legal entity.
   3. Invoice from Address: Address where you send invoices to your customers. It can be the same as the Remit-to Address or a different one.
   4. Ship from Address: Address where you send products to your customer. It can be the same Invoice from Address or a different one. 
   5. Remit-to Address: The address where you receive payments. It can be the same Invoice from Address or a different one. When creating a payment method (bank transfer or virtual card), the system will pick up the latest version of the remit-to address on the legal entity
4. When you have finished entering your information, click the Save button. A confirmation message confirms that the action is successful: "Your Legal Entity setup is now complete. If you would like to add new Payment Methods to this Legal Entity which your customers can use to pay you, please click continue below."
   
   
5. Click Continue to add new payment methods to the legal entity or click Close to return to the Legal Entities page. 

View legal entities

To view your legal entities, go to Business Profile > Legal Entities to see a table with all your created legal entities, as well as the options to view and manage them:

• Create button: to create new legal entities, as explained below in this same page.
• Search bar: to find any legal entity registered under your organization.
• Filter button: to find a specific legal entity by filtering results searching the values in the Customer and Linked Payment Method fields.
• More options menu: Select the three ot menu at the top right of the window to view the Export as CSV option. This exports and downloads a document in .csv format with the information for all the created legal entities for your organization.

Legal entities data table 

The main table in the legal entities page shows legal entities in rows. You can hover over a specific legal entity row to edit its information. 

Edit legal entities

Administrators can edit existing legal entities. The only exception  case is a legal entity with Coupa Pay as a payment method. In this case, it is not possible to edit the legal entity at all.

1. From the top navigation bar, select Business Profile > Legal Entities. The window shows a table with all your legal entities. If you have not yet created any legal entities, this table is blank.
2. Hover over a specific legal entity’s name. The row changes the background color to gray and a blue pencil icon appears next to the name. 
3. Click the pencil icon. The Edit Legal Entity window appears. 
4. Make the changes you require to any relevant fields. All fields are editable except Country, Invoice-From Address (Country) and Tax Registration. If you need to change one of these fields, you need to create a new legal entity to replace this one. 
5. After reviewing your changes, click Save to complete the edit. 

Merge legal entities

Administrators can merge a legal entities. All payment methods associated with the legal entities (up to 50 payment methods) are included in the final, merged legal entity. The merge does not impact any in-flight processes, such as payments. Merging legal entities is permanent and cannot be undone. 

You can merge two or more entities when they meet certain criteria: 

• The country is the same for both the primary entity and secondary entity.
• The tax registrations of the secondary legal entity match the Tax ID of the primary legal entity or include a subset of the primary entity’s tax registrations.  

Some conditions make it impossible to merge entities: 

• A legal entity does not have a Tax ID.
• The legal entities have different Tax IDs.
• A legal entity has Coupa Pay as a registered payment method.

Upon verifying that the legal entities are eligible to merge, follow these steps:

1. From the top navigation bar, select Business Profile > Legal Entities. The window shows a table with all your legal entities.
2. Select the three dot menu to the right of the filter button and select Merge Legal Entities.  
3. From the Merge Legal Entity screen, select a Primary Legal Entity from the dropdown menu. The list shows all the legal entities that do not have any Coupa Pay (CPay) registered payment methods. The resulting final legal entity will keep the Country and Tax ID of the Primary Legal Entity, so make sure to select one with the Country and Tax ID you want to keep as the primary legal entity. 
4. Select a Secondary Legal Entity (or more than one) from the dropdown menu.
5. After you select the Secondary Legal Entity, the page loads a preview of the merged legal entity:
   1. Country/Region
   2. Invoice From address
   3. Ship from address
   4. Tax Registration(s)
   5. Accepted payment methods
6. Click the Merge button to complete the process.