Structure: branches, books, ownership, and the lines between them

What this page controls

Structure is where an Admin lays out every branch and every book the business runs, and how they relate to each other: which one owns which, and what one bills another. It is the one page that answers "what is this company made of," and three other surfaces read it: your firm-wide figures fold every owned book into one number, Valuation reads the ownership tree and each book's legal form, and the consolidated report translates a book kept in another currency rather than simply adding it in.

A branch is never deleted here, only closed. A closed branch keeps every job it ever ran, and reopening it under the exact name it closed under re-links any future import that would otherwise start a new branch by mistake.

Where to find it

Structure is admin-only. Open Settings from the sidebar, then in the Your business group click Structure, or go directly to /settings/structure. A non-admin who navigates there directly is sent back to Settings. This page used to be Branches, at /settings/branches; that address still works and redirects here.

The page holds three groups, described below: Branches, Who owns what, and Between the books.

Branches

The main list is every location and company on your plane, active ones first. Each row shows the branch's name, place, and job count. Click Add Branch to open a short form: a Name, a State, and a City. New branches are simple by default, a straightforward operating location.

Click Manage on any row to open its full detail, where you can set:

• Name, State / City: the branch's own identity, never guessed from its name.
• Kind: what this row actually is. Most operators only ever need Operating branch, a location that runs restoration work. The rest of the list exists for a more complex structure:

- Office of a branch: a second address that keeps no books of its own; it counts toward your total on its branch's own books, and as a location. - Division at a branch's address: a separate company operating from a branch's address; counted in your total but not as a second location. - Holding or property company: owns the buildings or the shares. Held apart from your operating total; its rent is the branches' rent. - Equipment or fleet company: owns the trucks and drying gear and leases them to the branches. Held apart. - Management company: bills the branches a management fee. Held apart; the fee is the branches' expense. - Payroll or staffing company: employs the people and recharges the branches. Held apart; the recharge is the branches' labor. - Joint venture or minority stake: a business you don't run outright. Held apart until its ownership share is set under Who owns what.

• Operates at (divisions only): the branch or office whose address this company works from.
• Keeps its books on (offices only): the branch whose statements carry this office's figures.
• Legal form: LLC, S corporation, C corporation, partnership, trust, or sole proprietor. Read by Valuation alone, for owner pay and tax treatment.
• Books kept in: the currency this book's statements are stated in, if different from your account's. Two books in two currencies consolidate by translation at the period's rate, never by simple addition.
• Fiscal year ends: the month this book's own year ends, if not the calendar year. The trailing window in reports runs to this book's own close.

From the same panel you can Merge Into another branch, which moves this branch's jobs onto the target and closes this one, or deactivate it entirely.

If an import brought in a location that isn't yet on your membership, it appears under Not on your membership yet: its jobs are already counted in your reports, and covering it is what lets you work it as its own branch.

Who owns what

This section draws the ownership tree over your books (holding companies, equipment companies, and the rest) and lets you set it, once, from either end of the relationship: on the owned book's row or the owner's. Type a percentage and it commits the moment you leave the field.

What the share decides downstream:

• Owned wholly, a book folds entirely into the firm's figure.
• Owned more than half, it folds in and the other owners' share of its net income comes off as a deduction.
• Owned half or less, only your share of its net income shows, as investment income.

If one book (typically a holding company) owns every other unowned book on your list, a one-click prompt offers to set that ownership across all of them at once, rather than entering it one row at a time.

Between the books

This section records what one book bills another every month: rent to a property company, a management fee, work one branch did on another branch's jobs. Add a line by picking Who bills, Who pays, what it is For (rent, equipment lease, management fee, payroll recharge, or work billed between the books), and the monthly amount in your reporting currency.

Between two operating branches, the same dollar amount comes off both sides of the firm's consolidated figure, so it nets to zero at the firm level. From a company held apart (a holding or equipment company), the line is drawn as the part of that company's revenue that is really the branches' own money moving between pockets, not new revenue to the firm.

Best-practice example

Say you run three operating branches plus a holding company that owns the building each branch works from. On Structure, you'd set the holding company's Kind to Holding or property company, then under Who owns what give it 100 percent of each branch (or use the one-click prompt if it's the only company that could own the rest). Finally, under Between the books, add three lines, one per branch, each Rent, each billed from the holding company to that branch. Your firm-wide figures then read the three branches' operating results with the holding company held apart, and Valuation sees the ownership tree it needs.

Data sources