Quick answer
- Create a new Organization when you need a separate workspace with its own members, roles and account context.
- Create a new Site when you need an additional physical location inside the same workspace.
If you are asking "new business, client or collection" versus "new location, venue or branch", that is usually the right split.
Definitions
Organization
An Organization is your top-level workspace. Think of it as:
- a separate tenant and account context
- its own member roles and access governance
- its own default settings and business context
Examples: your restaurant business, a wine club entity, your private collector account, or a client account you manage separately.
Site
A Site is a physical location inside one Organization. Think of it as:
- one venue, branch, warehouse or home cellar under the same org
- the anchor for your storage hierarchy and site-specific operational data
Examples: main restaurant venue, secondary branch, warehouse, or a home cellar room in the same org.
Decision path
- Do you need separate members, roles and governance from your current setup?
- Yes: create a new Organization.
- No: go to step 2.
- Is this just another physical location of the same business or team?
- Yes: create a new Site.
- No: go to step 3.
- Do you want a clearly separate context, for example private collection versus work collection?
- Yes: create a new Organization.
- No: create a new Site.
Practical scenarios
- One restaurant with two branches. Use 1 Organization and 2 Sites.
- A wine bar plus a private personal cellar. Use 2 Organizations, a business org and a private collector org.
- Managing cellars for multiple clients. Use 1 Organization per client, and add Sites inside each client org if they have multiple locations.
- A new storage room in the same venue. Add a Room or Storage Unit, not a new organization.
- Same building, separate legal team and access. Usually separate Organizations.
What changes with each choice
If you create a new Organization
You get a separate workspace context with organization membership and role scope, organization-level preferences, and independent business context. Users switch organizations to move between contexts, and each organization is managed as its own workspace.
If you create a new Site
You stay in the same organization and add a location context for the storage hierarchy (site -> room -> storage), inventory by location, and site-level operational filtering and overrides. Users switch sites within the same org, and no org-level identity split is introduced.
Feature scope matrix
| Scope | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Organization-scoped | Membership and roles, invitations and access governance, organization preferences |
| Site-scoped | Storage structure (site, room, storage), site-specific inventory positions, lots and movements, site access assignments |
| Org default with optional site override | Pricing and related rules, glass volumes and rules, wine list and site assignment patterns where supported |
Common mistakes to avoid
- Creating a new Organization for a second branch that should share the same team and workspace.
- Creating a new Site when you actually need data and access separation, for example a private collection versus a business.
- Treating "new room" as "new org". Rooms and storage belong under a Site within the same org.
Recommendation for most users
Start with one Organization per real business or private context. Add Sites for physical locations inside that context. Only create additional organizations when you need clear operational or access separation.