Using Multiple Companies

Costpoint offers multicompany functionality which allows taxable entities to share a common database while, at the same time, individual companies can make their own selections regarding security, business rules, and functional currency.

You establish multicompany capabilities by assigning a unique company ID to each company. The company ID is associated with and assigned to each transaction, organization, reference number, reorganization, project, employee, and product.

Security

You must assign one or more company IDs to users when setting them up for the first time in Costpoint. You can grant or limit user access to a specific company or companies. For each company ID, you can assign users a user group and/or an org security group. Each user can access only the Costpoint modules, applications, and organizations that have been assigned to his group.

Business Rules

In order to establish different business rules for each company, you must complete the settings screens for each company in Costpoint. (You may need to define segment levels and lengths for project structures, set up financial statements, designate A/P voucher approvers, establish pay periods for payroll, and so on.)

Settings Screens and Corporate Settings

You must initialize settings screens for each company.  

You must, however, initialize some settings screens at the corporate level for global business rules that are established across the entire database and are therefore applied to each company. These rules include setup in the following areas:

  • Countries and states
  • Fiscal years, periods, and accounts
  • Definition of the first segment length for organizations
  • Reference numbers and reorganizations
  • Customer terms, types, credit limits, and credit ratings
  • Project types and change order statuses
  • Individual social security numbers to be used for employee IDs
  • Federal, state, and local taxes

Functional Currency

You must also specify the functional currency for each company that you set up in Costpoint. The currency may differ from company to company. The functional currency is the currency used to prepare the financial statements and maintain the general ledger.