Introduction to Multiple Company Accounting in CiviPlus
If you have multiple legal entities you need to maintain separate financial records: i.e. each entity has its own set of books, tracking its own income, expenses, assets, and liabilities. You need to be able to attribute all your sales or expenses to a specific legal entity. This has implications on the way that CiviPlus needs to be configured:
Invoices and credit notes in CiviPlus need to be attributed to the correct legal entity for each sale
Payments and refund payments in CiviPlus against those invoices (contributions) need to be attributed to the correct legal entity for each sale
Financial transactions / accounting entries need to be attributed to the correct legal entity (which in turn means having separate Financial accounts for each legal entity).
When you export financial data to your finance system you will want to be able to filter this to the relevant legal entity.
What does it do?
Multi Company Accounting allows you to configure multiple companies on a single setting page in CiviPlus where each company can have its own invoicing numbering, credit note numbering and different email /PDF templates.
Each organisation is linked with Financial Accounts which are related to Financial Type used to define the Contributions. Based on this association of Financial Type with contribution, right details are picked up to generate invoice.
For credit notes, each credit note allows to define the owner organisation which is directly linked and based on this association with owner organisation, correct details are picked up to generate credit note.
How does it work?
For single company: Make sure the default company is setup on your site which will then used to create invoice, create credit note and the numbering will applied based on the numbering provided for that company/organisation.
For multiple company: Make sure at least one default company is setup to be used and any new companies should be setup which can then be selected under organisation while creating the credit note and used by the contribution based on their Financial Type.
As an admin: What needs to be set up / can be configured
Company Setup/Creation
Prerequisite: Ensure at least one company exists on the site. By default for new/existing sites, a default company is setup already which can be edited.
How to Create a Company
To create a company on your site, Go to Administer->CiviContribute->Companies
Under Company Listing, there is a button called “Add Company“ which allows you to create a new company(needed for multi company accounting)
Add details of the company on the create page.
The following fields needs to be populated to setup a company:
Organisation(Mandatory): Select the organisation name from the dropdown/search for it to select for quick access.
For each “Company a CiviPlus organisation contact must exist.
Invoice Template(Mandatory): Select the invoice template from the dropdown/search for it to select for quick access.
Invoice Prefix(Optional): You can set a prefix for the invoice number which will be displayed on the invoice. For example: INV 0001 (INV is a prefix)
Next Invoice Number(Mandatory): Enter the next invoice number which will be used for the next invoice and will be increased sequentially by +1. This number can be edited and post update, the next invoice will use the updated next number.
Credit Note Template(Mandatory): Select the credit note template from the dropdown/search for it to select for quick access.
Credit note Prefix(Optional): You can set a prefix for the credit note number which will be displayed on the credit note. For example: CR 0001 (CR is a prefix)
Next Credit Note Number(Mandatory): Enter the next credit note number which will be used for the next credit note and will be increased sequentially by +1. This number can be edited and post update, the next credit note will use the updated next number.
Accounts Receivable Payment Method(Mandatory): Each company requires a payment method to be used as the accounts receivable account for unpaid invoices. This is created automatically for the first company. For additional companies you need to create this before creating the Company. You can do this in Administer > CiviContribute > Payment Methods
The relevant accounts receivable payment method that is configured for the owner organisation will be recorded as the payment method for any contribution that is being created via the:
Create contribution
Create membership
Register event participant
Note: The Contribution does not display the “Owner Organisation”. It’s a hidden field for the user with no permissions to change.
Using Multicompany Accounting:
How Invoice Numbering works
Invoice Numbering for first company
Example of Invoice Generation and numbering with Organisation “Default Organisation“ which has the Invoice Prefix set to SI and Numbering is set based on last invoice number for this organisation + 1
Steps:
Setup a company via Multi-company accounting feature mentioned above under “How to create a company“
Setup the invoice prefix and invoice next number as part of the company creation in Step 1
Navigate to Contributions ->New Contribution, add the details and save the contribution.
While creating the contribution, the organisation( aka company) is already linked on the background based on the Financial Type of the contribution or Financial Type of the first line item in case of multiple line items (whether other line items belong to other financial type or not). The organisation is picked up from the Financial account linked to the Financial Type.
Note: It should be ensured that all the “Financial Accounts” linking to that “Financial type” have the same “Owner Organisation”. Failire to do so could result in unexpected consequences.
Save the contribution after filling all the information
Go to the contribution view, invoice note number will be displayed based on the “Invoice Next Number” field under Invoice Number
Note, Invoice next number is incremented by 1 on the company page as shown in the flow recording above
Invoice Numbering for second company
Here is an example of Invoice Generation and numbering with another Organisation “Central London Trust“ which has the Invoice Prefix set to OK_ and Numbering is set based on last invoice number for this organisation + 1
Company Creation steps are same as specified in the above example
Update Invoice Numbering
Using the Multi Company Accounting Feature, you can update the next number of an invoice for a company. This allows you to restart numbering as required.
In the below example, the user has updated the next number to “500“ from “450“. So as per this scenario, the next invoice uses the 500 as the invoice number.
Update Invoice Prefix
Using the Multi Company Accounting Feature, your can update the prefix of the invoice for a company number. In the below example, the user has updated the prefix to “INV“ from “SI“. So as per this, the next invoice uses the INV as the prefix.
Changing the Financial Type of a Contribution
You can edit the contribution. However with multi company accounting, since the Owner Organisation is linked with the contribution based on the Financial Type (via the Financial Accounts) if you edit the Financial type of a contribution to a new Financial Type, which is linked via the Financial Accounts to a different owner organisation this would cause issues as the journal entries would be in two different legal entities.
Hence, there is a validation rule to stop you from editing the Financial type which is different than the owner organisation linked with the contribution.
