For example, let’s say I have companies and provinces .
Is it sufficient to add a reference field to companies to link it to a province, or should I also add a multi-reference field to province so that I can link it to multiple companies?
Or does this entirely depend on how I want to design the pages?
If I understand what you are trying to accomplish, you can just set a multi-reference field inside Companies collection. Then you can place a collection list linked to the Provinces collection, inside the Companies template page, and set a filter: “Companies contains current Company”
That way only Provinces that are inside that particular Company will show up.