Chapter 3 — Company and organisation setup

Module code: COMPANY Features: company_setup, dept_mgmt, designation_mgmt

This is the first thing to configure in a new workspace. Employees belong to departments, documents belong to companies, and addresses need countries and cities to exist. Nearly everything else depends on this chapter.

3.1 Who does this

The workspace administrator, once, at setup — and then occasionally when the business changes: a new branch opens, a department is reorganised, a new job title is created.

3.2 Companies

A company is a legal entity. A workspace has at least one. Businesses with several registered entities, or with branches that need their own documents and numbering, create one company per entity.

Screens

/companies/                    list of companies
/companies/create/             create a company
/companies/<id>/               company detail
/companies/<id>/update/        edit a company

Creating a company

1. Go to /companies/ and select Create.
2. Complete the identity section: - Name — the trading name. This appears on invoices, reports and printouts. - Legal name — the registered name, if different. - Registration and tax numbers — your company registration number, VAT/GST or NTN number as applicable. These print on tax documents, so enter them exactly as registered.
3. Complete the contact section. Primary email and the first address line are required — the system will not save a company without them, because outgoing documents need a return address.
4. Set the currency and country. The country drives which localisation applies, including tax templates and any e-invoicing integration.
5. Upload a logo if you have one. It appears on printed documents.
6. Mark Is a branch if this company is a branch of another, and choose its parent.
7. Save.

Verifying and deactivating

• Verify on the company detail page marks the record as checked. Use it as an internal control once the registration details have been confirmed against documents.
• Toggle status deactivates a company. Deactivated companies stay in the system with all their history but stop appearing in dropdowns on new documents. Use this rather than deleting; deleting a company with transactions is not possible and should not be.

3.3 Departments

A department is an organisational unit inside a company — Finance, Warehouse, Production. Departments are used by HR for reporting lines, by Help Desk for ticket routing, and by reports for grouping.

Screens

/departments/                  list
/departments/create/           create
/departments/<id>/             detail
/departments/<id>/update/      edit
/departments/manage/           bulk management view

Creating a department

1. Go to /departments/ and select Create.
2. Enter: - Name — for example Finance. - Company — which company it belongs to. A department belongs to exactly one. - Parent department — leave blank for a top-level department, or choose a parent to build a hierarchy. - Head of department — optional; used by approval routing.
3. Save.

Departments nest as deeply as you need, but a flat structure of eight to fifteen departments is easier to run than a deep tree. Reports group by the department on the employee record, not by walking the tree.

3.4 Designations

A designation is a job title — Accounts Officer, Warehouse Supervisor, Teacher. Designations carry a hierarchy, which is what makes approval routing work: a leave application goes to the holder of the parent designation.

Screens

/designations/                 list
/designations/create/          create
/designations/<id>/            detail
/designations/<id>/update/     edit

Creating a designation

1. Go to /designations/ and select Create.
2. Enter: - Title — the job title. - Company. - Reports to — the designation above this one. This is the field that drives approval chains, so take care with it. - Level or grade — optional, used for payroll banding and reports.
3. Save.

Checking the hierarchy

The designation list shows the reporting structure. Before going live with leave or purchase approvals, walk the chain from the most junior title upwards and confirm each step lands where you expect. A designation with no parent is treated as top of the chain — approvals stop there.

Common mistake: creating two designations with the same title in different companies and linking an employee to the wrong one. The approval then routes to a manager in another company. The designation list shows the company column; use it.

3.5 Geography: countries, states, cities and districts

Addresses across the whole product — partners, employees, students, stores — draw from a shared geography table. It must be populated before addresses can be captured properly.

Screens

/country-groups/               groups of countries (e.g. GCC, EU)
/countries/                    countries
/states/                       states / provinces / regions
/cities/                       cities
/districts/                    districts within cities
/locations/import/             bulk import
/locations/export/             bulk export
/locations/import-template/    download the import template

Setting geography up

For most customers the fastest route is the bulk import:

1. Go to /locations/import-template/ and download the template file.
2. Fill it in. The columns are country, state, city and district, one row per lowest level you need.
3. Go to /locations/import/, upload the completed file, and confirm.
4. Check the result at /countries/ and /cities/.

To add records one at a time instead, use Create on each of the list screens above, working top-down: country first, then state, then city, then district. Each level requires its parent to exist.

Country groups

A country group bundles countries for reporting or for pricing rules — for example a GCC group or an Export group. Create them at /country-groups/ and assign countries to them from the country form. They are optional; skip them unless you have a rule that needs them.

3.6 Setup checklist

Work down this list before moving to Chapter 4.

[ ] At least one company exists, with email and address filled in
[ ] Company registration and tax numbers entered exactly as registered
[ ] Logo uploaded
[ ] Departments created for every area that will have employees or tickets
[ ] Designations created, with "Reports to" set on each
[ ] The approval chain walked end to end and confirmed
[ ] Geography loaded for every country you operate in

3.7 Troubleshooting