A company profile is the B2B record that represents a business customer rather than an individual shopper. It groups everything tied to that account in one place: multiple locations, the people authorized to buy, agreed payment terms, and the catalogs or price lists they can see. On Shopify, the company is the core object that makes wholesale relationships work differently from standard retail customers.
How it works
A company profile sits above the individual contacts inside it. Each business gets one company record, and that record can hold several locations (for example a head office and three regional branches), each with its own shipping addresses, tax settings, and payment terms. Buyers are attached as company contacts with defined permissions, so a purchasing manager and a warehouse clerk can both order under the same account with different limits. Catalogs and price lists then control which products and prices that company sees at checkout.
Why it matters
Without a company profile, a wholesale buyer looks identical to a retail one, and you lose the structure that B2B needs: negotiated pricing, net terms, and location-specific ordering. The profile is also where a quote naturally lands. When you send a quote and the buyer accepts, tying it to a company record keeps pricing, terms, and history consistent across every future order from that account.
Example
A restaurant group with five outlets is one company profile. Each outlet is a location, each manager is a buyer, and their negotiated case pricing lives in a catalog assigned to the company. A quote sent to one outlet can convert into an order that respects those same terms.
For related terms, see the B2B quoting glossary, or review plans if you are evaluating quoting tools that read company data.