Multi Business Entity Overview 

Introduction 

Businesses are continually exploring opportunities to grow and generate higher profits. Business expansion strategies include expansion to new markets, locations, product offerings, or mergers & acquisitions. To meet regional requirements based on compliance, taxation, and legal guidelines or internal operational criteria, most businesses choose to establish independent entities.

Let's review this example, ABCFarms a farm-tech company headquartered in Texas, USA decides to operate from India, Singapore, and Australia. To ensure compliance with the legal and taxation guidelines established by each of these countries, it is recommended to set up independent entities. In addition to the benefits associated with compliance, each entity will cater to its unique market needs and help measure performance separate from its parent organization.

Chargebee's Multi-Business Entity solution enables you to manage such multiple businesses as independent entities from a single Chargebee site. This solution is built to ensure you can manage each of your entities as you would an independent Chargebee site. This feature aims to improve the overall functionality of your Chargebee site with the following benefits:

  • Manage all entities from a single site offering a unified view.
  • Implement stringent Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) across multiple entities.
  • Address Billing and Taxation challenges associated with multiple entities.
  • Customized Invoicing options including invoice numbering, invoice notes, and payment instructions.
  • Configure entity-specific smart routing settings.
  • Configure entity-specific checkout settings.
  • Associate customers and subscriptions to specific entities including self-serve checkout.
  • Advanced reporting to highlight performance metrics globally and entity.
  • Configure brand styles for each of your business entities.

Enable Multiple Business Entities 

Follow the steps below to enable multiple business entities for your Chargebee site:

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Click Settings > Configure Chargebee > Multiple Entity Support.

  3. Click Enable to activate the addition of new entities.

  4. Enter the name in the Business entity name field. In Entity ID enter your own unique entity ID, if you leave the field blank then Chargebee will automatically generate a unique identifier for it. Click Confirm and Enable. Learn more about Entity ID.

  5. Click Go to Business Entities to view all entities once enabled.

  6. View the first business entity with details. You can also manage and add new entities as required.

Entity ID: This is a unique business entity ID that helps you to identify a specific business entity.

Create Multiple Business Entities 

Follow the steps below to create business entities for your Chargebee site:

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Click Settings > Configure Chargebee > Business entities.

  3. View all entities and click Create Business Entity to add additional entities.
    Note: You can create up to 30 entities currently.

  4. Enter the Business entity name and click Create.

  5. A list of all added entities appears on the Business Entities page as shown below.

Modify Multiple Business Entities 

Follow the steps below to update business entities for your Chargebee site:

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Click Settings > Configure Chargebee > Business entities.

  3. View all entities and click Edit to update any specific entity.

  4. Change the Business entity name and click Update.

  5. The name of the updated entity appears on the Business Entities page.

Switch between Multiple Entity and Profiles 

Once the business entities are created, your left navigation pane includes an additional option that allows you to switch between your entities.

Follow the steps below to switch between entities:

  1. Click the switch icon in the left navigation menu to view a list of entities.

  2. Select the entity to access from the list that displays.

  3. Review or update necessary details associated with Business Entity.

Note

The ability to switch between entities is dependent on the access assigned to the user. Users can only view entities for which they are assigned access.

Assign Access Role 

Follow the steps below to invite team members to a site or entity and assign access levels:

Site Admin User 

A Site admin user can invite another user to have the same access as themselves or lower. In this example, we will review a Site Admin providing Entity Admin access to a user.

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Ensure you have selected the site view from the switch icon.

  3. Click Settings > Team Members to invite new users.

  4. Click Invite Members to assign access levels and send email invites.

  5. Enter the email address of the invitee in the Email field and select the applicable radio button to give access to business entitie and click Add Entities to select entities.

  6. Select applicable entities and click Add.

  7. Click the applicable radio button to assign Roles and Access.

  8. Click Create to send the email invite and review the access view page that lists current users and their access levels.

Entity-Level User 

An Entity Admin user can invite users to have the same access or lower. In this example, we will review an Entity Admin providing Entity Admin access to a user.

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Ensure you have selected the site view from the switch icon.

  3. Click Settings > Team Members to invite new users.

  4. Click Invite Members.

  5. Enter the email address of the invitee in the Email field and select the entities the user would access.

  6. Select the applicable radio button to assign Roles and Access.

  7. Click Create to send the email invite and review the access view page that lists current users and their access levels.

Role Based Access Control

The configuration of your site and the addition of business entities are now complete. It is now imperative that you add team members and assign them access to the site or entities created.

Select Entities Assign Roles
All entities Administrative access

  • User can fully access the site and all entities.
  • User can create new entities and modify them.
  • User can create, edit, and remove data from any entity.
  • User can access the setting page.
Business entity-level access:

  • User can access all entities. 
  • User can create, edit, and remove data from any entity.
Role-based access:

This allows you to assign access based on the roles configured on your site. 
  • User can access all entities. 
  • User has restricted access as per their roles. 
  • User doesn't have access to the setting page except for the Finance manager.
Specific entities Business entity-level access:

  • User can access specific entities only. 
  • User can create, edit, and remove data from only allowed entities.
Role-based access:

This allows you to assign access based on the roles configured on your site. 

  • User can access specific entities.
  • User has restricted access as per their roles. 
  • User doesn't have access to the setting page except for the Finance manager.
Note

It is important to note that the access level that a user can assign while inviting a new user is limited to their own access or lower.

Accepting an Invite 

Advise your team members to review the receipt of an email and click Accept Invite to be added to the Chargebee site.

Customer Management 

The creation and management of customers can be fulfilled by users based on the access that is assigned to them.

To elaborate, a site admin can add customers to any of the entities while an entity-level user can only add customers to the entity to which access is provided.

Site Admin User 

In this example, the site admin user with access to multiple entities is creating a customer for the Australian entity:

  1. Login to the Chargebee site.

  2. Click Customers from the left navigation menu.

  3. Click Create Customer to add a new customer.

  4. Select the applicable option from the Business Entity drop-down list.

  5. Type the required details into other fields and click Create.

View Customer List 

When using the site view, the All Customers list is an effective way of viewing all customer records associated with the site and/or entity.

However, the increased number of entities may result in additional records making it harder to navigate and locate a required customer record. The filter options have been optimized to now include Business Entity allowing you to view customers associated with a business entity.

Entity-Level User 

An entity admin can create customers, however, the customers can be created only for entities that the user has access to. Review the screenshot below for user limited to creating customers for associated entities only.

Subscription Management 

Subscriptions are created based on the access levels that are associated with the user. Follow the steps below based on the access level assigned to you:

Site Level Admin 

A site admin user may have access to multiple entities and can create a subscription using the customer base from all entities. However, it is important to note that the entity of the customer determines the entity of the subscription too.

Follow the steps below to create a subscription for a customer:

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Click Subscriptions.

  3. Click Create New Subscription.

  4. Select an applicable customer from the Customer List or click Create new customer.

Entity-Level User 

A business entity admin can only create subscriptions for entities assigned only. Follow the steps below to create a subscription for a customer associated with an entity.

  1. Login to your Chargebee site.

  2. Click Subscriptions.

  3. Click Create New Subscription.

  4. The associated with the customer displays at the top, enter the subscription details required, and click Create.

  5. The entity associated with the subscription displays at the top of the subscriptions page with the subscription details.

Brand Style Management 

This feature enables you to configure brand styles for each of your business entities. By default, the brand style for each entity is the same as your site style. Using this feature you can override your default brand style and create a custom style for each entity.

Configure Brand Style 

Customize your brand's presentation for each business entity.

Following are some common steps to be performed for each configuration:

  1. Select the brand or business entity for which you want to configure the brand style.

  2. Navigate to Settings > Configure Chargebee > Brand Style.

Logo & Color 

To configure the logo and color of a specific brand, follow these steps on the Brand Style page:

  1. Brand elements: These elements appear on all your customer-facing emails, invoices, credit notes, checkout pages, and self-serve portal. Drag and drop or browse your brand elements(Logo, Icon, or Favicon).
    • Logo: This is the brand's logo. We recommend the image size to be 400 x 300 px or 300 x 400 px.
    • Icon: This is the brand's icon. We recommend the image size to be 300 x 300 px.
    • Favicon: This is the brand's favicon. We recommend the image size to be 256 x 256 px, the minimum image size should be 16 x 16 px.
  2. Brand color: This color appears to highlight buttons and links on your customer-facing essentials. Pick a color from the range of given options.

The following are the features whose brand styles are configurable:

  • Email
  • Invoice
  • Checkout
  • Self-serve Portal

Email 

To configure the brand style of your email, follow these steps on the Brand Style page:

  1. Click Add Logo & Color or Manage Logo & Color to customize your brand elements and color. Click Apply > Confirm.

  2. In the Email tab, click Customize layout and Confirm to create a custom brand style for your brand's email.

  3. Choose the logo type with desired properties and click Apply Changes. The following are the logo types and their properties:

    • Logo: Select Logo as logo type, Small, Medium, or Large as logo size, and Left or Middle to set logo alignment.
    • Icon: Select Icon as logo type, Small, or Medium as logo size, and Left or Middle to set logo alignment.
    • Text: Select Text as logo type, enter text in the Text field, and select Left or Middle to set text alignment.
    • None: Select None as logo type to customize your brand's email without a logo.
  4. Click Send test mail to preview your email brand style configuration and click Send Email to send an email to your preferred email address for verification.

  5. Preview the sample email to verify your configuration.

Invoice 

To configure the brand style of your invoice, follow these steps on the Brand Style page:

  1. Click Add Logo & Color or Manage Logo & Color to customize your brand elements and color. Click Apply > Confirm.

  2. In the Invoice tab, click Customize layout and Confirm to create a custom brand style for your brand's invoice.

  3. Choose the logo type with desired properties and click Apply Changes. The following are the logo types and their properties:

    • Logo: Select Logo as logo type and Small, Medium, or Large as your prefered logo size.
    • Icon: Select Icon as logo type and Small or Medium as your prefered logo size.
    • None: Select None as logo type to customize your brand's invoice without a logo.
  4. Click Preview sample invoice to verify your invoice brand style configuration.

  5. Preview the sample invoice to verify your configuration.

Checkout 

To configure the brand style of your Checkout page, follow these steps on the Brand Style page:

  1. Click Add Logo & Color or Manage Logo & Color to customize your brand elements and color and click Apply > Confirm.

  2. In the Checkout tab, click Customize layout and Confirm to create a custom brand style for your brand's checkout page.

  3. Choose the logo type with desired properties and click Apply Changes. The following are the logo types and their properties:

    • Logo: Select Logo as your preferred logo type.
    • Icon: Select Icon as your preferred logo type.
    • None: Select None as your preferred logo type to customize your brand's checkout page without a logo.
  4. Click See it in action to verify your checkout page's brand style configuration.

  5. Preview the sample checkout page to verify your configuration.

Note
  • The See it in action button is not available for Checkout & Self Serve Portal at the Site level as there is no site level checkout/self serve portal when MBE is enabled. The button will be disabled if the new checkout feature is not enabled.
  • The site admins have access to the brand style management for the site and all entities, and the business entity admins can only access and update the brand styles of their respective entities.

Self-serve Portal 

Checkout and Self-serve Portal has the same configuration. Hence, applying changes to Checkout or Self-serve Portal will be effective for both.

Note: Click Restore default styles, to restore the default style for your preferred brand.

Was this article helpful?
Loading…