A linking system that assists in managing the linking of entities contained in messages between two business applications is disclosed. The linking system also assists in updating entities between two business applications when an entity is updated in one application. The linking system takes each entity and places identifying information for the entity in a record in a first table. The system then creates in a record in a second table indicating that the two records in the first table are linked. The linking system also can remove links or records from the tables, and can return to a user a list of records that are linked together.