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.
- A home cellar next to your restaurant is usually a Site marked Private, not a new Organization.
If you are asking "new business or client" 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.
- Is it a private collection, for example your own cellar at home?
- Yes, and it must stay separate from your business partners and admins, or it needs its own account and billing: create a new Organization.
- Yes, and none of that applies: create a Site and mark it Private.
- No: create a new Site.
Practical scenarios
- One restaurant with two branches. Use 1 Organization and 2 Sites.
- A wine bar plus a private cellar at home. Use 1 Organization with 2 Sites and mark the home cellar Private, so bottles can move between home and the bar. Choose a second, private collector Organization only when the collection has to stay separate from your business partners and admins, or needs its own account and billing.
- 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. Bottles cannot be transferred from one organization to another.
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.
Private venue
A Site can be marked Private. It is meant for a home cellar that sits next to your restaurant in the same Organization.
On a private venue Vinius behaves as it does in a private collector account. Selling prices, glass prices and pricing rules are hidden, there are no reorder alerts or reorder thresholds, and stock is valued at market value.
Private venues never count in your business totals. The "All venues" dashboard, the monthly sales report and low-stock alerts all leave them out. You can still transfer bottles between a private venue and your business venues, and the history labels those moves.
Owners always see every private venue. Anyone else sees one only after being given access to that venue specifically. Access to all venues, which admins and managers can have, covers business venues only.
You set Private when you create or edit the Site in storage management. Changing it takes permission to manage sites and access to that venue. The setting is not offered in a private collector account, because everything there is private already. A private venue counts toward your plan's site limit.
A second Organization is still the better choice when the collection has to stay separate from your business partners and admins, or needs its own account and billing. Within one Organization, suppliers, orders, invoices, members and organization preferences are shared across all Sites, and every owner sees every venue.
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, the Private setting, wine cards (each card belongs to one venue) |
| Org default with optional site override | Pricing and related rules, glass volumes and rules, preferred supplier per wine |
| Follows the active venue | Dashboard figures, My Assistant's view of your collection, replenishment suggestions. Multi-site dashboards have an "All venues" switch; see Working with multiple sites |
Common mistakes to avoid
- Creating a new Organization for a second branch that should share the same team and workspace.
- Creating a second Organization for a home cellar you want to move bottles to and from. Transfers only work between Sites of one Organization, so use a private Site.
- Using a private Site when the collection must be hidden from your business partners, or needs its own billing. That calls for a separate Organization.
- 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, including a private Site for a home cellar next to your venue. Only create additional organizations when you need clear access separation or separate accounts.