Consider the example discussed in the section on shared sets where customers, suppliers, and exchange rates are used by all entities in both domains, but COA elements are not shared between domains.

Each customer needs an associated Customer Control account. However, if you assign a control account from the NA_Accounts shared set, it would be invalid when sales orders are created in the European Union domain.

Instead you assign the customer a Customer Account profile that indicates the account to use in each domain. Then, regardless of which entity does business with the customer, valid accounts are referenced when invoices are registered.

You may need only one profile of each type. However, there are cases when you may want more than one. For example, it is a common practice to have different AR and AP accounts for domestic and international trade. This requires defining a different profile code for each type.