Organization Reporting Structure

Organization Reporting allows you to divide your firm into distinct units and then track data separately for each unit.

You can track both project and financial data separately. This enables you to monitor the profitability of your business more effectively, because you can get a financial snapshot of each organization and compare that snapshot to the performance of your firm as a whole.

Before you begin using the Organization Reporting feature in Vision, you should consider the following questions to determine what structure will most effectively support your firm's needs:

• What levels of performance do you want to track?
• How will subcodes be set up to identify organizations?
• Are any label changes necessary?

One way to use the Organization Reporting feature (assuming that your firm has several branch offices) is to set up organizations by location. For example:

• A firm with offices in Boston and San Francisco could set up two distinct organizations to identify the offices — Boston Office and San Francisco Office.
• A firm with clusters of offices in the northeastern and southeastern United States could set up two distinct organizations to identify the regional offices — Northeastern District and Southeastern District.

Organization Reporting is also used to track business transactions by discipline or function. For example, you could divide a firm with three disciplines — Architecture, Engineering, and Environmental Consulting — into three organizations. And, you could divide a firm with a single office into three organizations — Sales, Administration, and Support.

After you set up your organization structure, you can view project reports, track financial transactions, and assess profitability for each organization in your firm.

You set up the Organization Reporting structure in Configuration > Organization.

One-Level or Multi-Level Organization

Depending on the size and complexity of your firm, you can create a fairly simple or more complex organization structure. For example, a small firm may opt for a simple, one-level structure to track it’s two branch offices. Or, the same firm may set up a two-level organization structure to simultaneously track branch offices and disciplines. A larger firm may want to track regions, offices, and disciplines — they would need a three-level organization structure.

With a multi-level organization structure, you determine the various combinations of regions, offices, and disciplines that make up valid organizations in your firm. Vision can accommodate up to five organization levels, although most firms need only one or two levels. The number of organization levels you need will depend on your firm’s structure and the level of detail you require.

You use subcodes to identify each organization level that you set up.

Examples

These are some of the ways in which you could divide your firm into organizations:

• Cities where offices are located (Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco).
• Regions where clusters of offices are located (Northeast, South, Midwest).
• Business functions or types of practice (architectural, engineering, environmental).
• Corporate structure (professional corporation, partnership, subsidiary).
• Companies (XYZ Corporation, ABC Corporation, 123 Corporation).

You could also combine any of these organization levels to create a multi-level organization structure:

• Companies — Regions — Cities
• Corporate Structure — Regions — Business Functions