Business units

A business unit is a location, store, branch or department inside one Suprata company account. Six auto-glass shops under one owner are six business units. So are a Residential and a Commercial division that share an office. Everyone works from the same customer list, and the owner still sees the whole company. Each shop simply gets its own view of its own work, money and people.

If you run one location as one business, you don't need this. It stays completely invisible until you have two or more active business units (and your plan includes Business Units). Most companies never see any of it.

When you'd use them

• Several locations under one owner. Six glass shops across two states, three marinas on one lake, or two branch offices. Each location has its own counter, register, stock and crew, but customers move between them.
• Departments that need their own numbers. Examples are Residential vs. Commercial or Service vs. Installation: one team of staff whose revenue you want split.
• Locations that print their own letterhead. A shop whose invoices should show its own street address, phone number and logo instead of head office's.

When not to use them:

• One location with several kinds of work. HVAC service and HVAC installation run from the same office are two job types, not two units.
• Pricing tiers. Residential vs. commercial pricing is a customer or price-list question, not a unit.
• Companies that must not share customers. Every unit sees the same customer records. If two businesses genuinely need separate customer lists and separate books, they need separate Suprata accounts.

How it fits together

Five ideas, in order:

1. Every record belongs to a unit. Jobs, agreements, reservations, invoices, estimates, registers and stock locations each carry a business unit. A record keeps the unit it was created in.
2. Every person is working in one unit at a time. A pill at the top of every page shows the unit's name, or "All business units". That choice decides what lists, boards and totals open on.
3. Each person has a home unit. This is where they start. A list of units they may work in sets where else they can go.
4. Revenue belongs to the unit that did the work. It doesn't matter which shop's counter the customer paid at. Where the money was taken is recorded separately, so shops can settle up.
5. It's a default view, not a wall. Nothing is blocked. More on that below, because it's the part people most often misunderstand.

The "working in" pill

The pill sits at the top of every page, with a building icon and the unit's name. If you're allowed to switch, clicking it opens a Work in menu listing the units you may use, plus All business units if your role allows it. Picking one reloads the page in that unit.

Your choice is remembered per person and follows you across devices. If you end the day in Manchester on the office PC, you open in Manchester on your phone the next morning. Before someone has ever picked, Suprata starts them in their home unit. With no home unit set, they start in "All business units" if they're allowed to see it, and otherwise in the company's default unit.

Scoped lists show a small line such as "Showing Nashua", with a Show all business units link for people who are allowed to use it.

Who can do what

There are two role permissions and two per-person settings.

You set home units and "may work in" in one grid on the Staff tab of the Business Units page (under Company Settings). You can also set them per person in the user editor. The two permissions live on each role.

Nothing changes on the day this arrives. Every existing role receives both permissions, and nobody has a home unit, so everyone starts on "All business units". The product looks exactly as it did until you set home units or remove permissions from a role. You can configure everything below at your own pace.

A default view, not a wall

Business units decide what a list opens on. They don't decide what someone is allowed to reach. That's deliberate.

Say a customer calls your Salem shop about a windshield that your Nashua shop replaced last week. The Salem counter person searches for the customer and opens their account. Every tab shows every unit's history. They open the Nashua job, and a yellow note says "This job belongs to Nashua. You are working in Salem." with a Switch to Nashua link if they're allowed to switch. They can answer the question, reschedule, or take a payment without calling anyone.

What always reaches every unit:

• Search (including AI search)
• The customer account page, all tabs
• Direct links to a job, invoice, agreement or reservation
• Statements, the customer portal and public booking

If you need people prevented from seeing another location's customers, business units are not that tool. They keep each shop's screens focused on its own work. They are not a security boundary.

What opens on your unit

• Jobs and scheduling: Open Jobs (its Business Unit filter starts on your unit), the Agreements queue, the Dispatch board, the company Calendar, GPS scheduling, the Work Queue (list, counts, badge and closed history) and the Follow-up surveys dashboard. Your personal calendar is never filtered.
• Reservations: the reservations list (a Business Unit filter under More Filters), stats, Front Desk, Deposit Compliance, the Online Bookings inbox and Waiting Lists. The Occupancy and Deposits & Refunds reports start on your unit.
• Money: Billing & Sales, Revenue, Tax, All Invoices, Uncollected, All Payments and Recurring each get a Business unit selector that starts on your unit. The Aging report and the home dashboard's revenue and sales widgets follow your unit too.
• Auto Glass and inventory: the Auto Glass board, insurance billing, KPIs, and inventory and purchasing (by the stock location's unit).

A few things are intentionally not filtered:

• Accounting Health stays company-wide so no bounced payment is ever missed, and it says so on the page.
• Personal widgets such as "My sales" and "my conversion", and a tech's "My Day", stay personal.
• Records with no unit, such as calls and follow-ups, show in every unit, labelled Unassigned.

A unit's money totals count only that unit's own records. Money on invoices with no unit is left out of every unit's total, and shown separately wherever there's a breakdown.

New records

A new job, agreement, reservation, standalone invoice, register or user starts in the unit you're working in. If you're on "All business units", it starts in your home unit, or the company default. Two exceptions win over that: an agreement template or reservation type that has a locked default unit.

Invoices and estimates carry their own unit, taken from their job, agreement, reservation or waiting-list entry. A standalone invoice started from the customer record takes your unit. When this feature arrived, existing invoices were given the unit of the job, agreement or reservation they came from. Invoices with no parent show as Unassigned.

Recalls, warranty jobs, agreement renewals and recurring agreement jobs copy their parent's unit. (Renewed agreements used to lose their unit; that's fixed.)

The practical rule for counter staff: if you're booking work for another shop, switch to that shop first. Otherwise the job lands in the shop you're sitting in.

Revenue vs. where the money was taken

A customer's windshield is replaced by Nashua, and they pay $420 at the Salem counter. The $420 is Nashua's revenue, because Nashua did the work. The payment is also stamped Taken at: Salem, because Salem has the cash in its drawer.

Every payment entered by staff records the unit that took it. That's the register's unit if the computer is a register. Otherwise it's the person's current unit, or else their home unit. Online, portal and autopay payments have no "taken at", because no shop took them.

The Business Unit Revenue report puts both halves together: what each unit earned, and who is holding whose money at month end. See Business unit revenue.

Registers, dispatch teams and stock

These tabs are on the same Business Units page:

• Registers & stock → Registers. Each register (till) belongs to one unit. That's required once you have two or more units. Several registers per unit are fine; each is its own drawer. See Using tills and cash drawers.
• Registers & stock → Stock locations. Each stock location belongs to a unit or is Shared. A unit's own locations are offered first for its jobs and purchase orders. A central warehouse that feeds every shop should stay Shared.
• Dispatch teams. Tick which units can schedule each team. A team with nothing ticked can be scheduled by every unit. The Dispatch board, GPS scheduling and Auto Glass booking show the techs of the teams your unit may dispatch, with a Show all techs button for when you need to borrow someone.

The time clock

Clocking in records the unit the employee is working in that day. Someone on "All business units" is asked "Where are you working today?", with their home unit highlighted. Someone clocking in away from home gets "Not your home store" and has to confirm. Time a manager adds counts at the employee's home unit. See The time clock for the report side, including an important overtime note.

Each unit's own details on documents

By default every invoice and estimate shows your company's name, address and logo. On the Documents tab, switch a unit from Use the company's details to Use this unit's own details. You can then fill in Name on documents, Phone, Email, Address, City, State / province, ZIP, Country, Email sender name, Replies go to, and Logo. Blank fields fall back to the company's.

The unit's details follow the record, not the viewer. A Nashua invoice prints Nashua's address even when someone in Salem opens it, both on the staff view and on the customer's online invoice. Invoice and estimate emails from that unit use its sender name and reply-to address, though they still go out from the company's mailbox.

The same tab has Sales tax for work done at this location, which ties the unit to one of your tax locations. See Charging tax where the work is done.

Automations, integrations and QuickBooks

• Automations can check Business Unit on jobs, invoices, agreements and reservations, and Taken At (Business Unit) on payments. That lets a rule apply to one shop only, instead of firing for the whole company.
• The API's list endpoints for jobs, invoices, payments, appointments, reservations and contracts can be filtered by business unit.
• QuickBooks: if your bookkeeper uses Class tracking, map each unit to a QuickBooks Class in the Classes step of the QuickBooks setup. Each synced invoice carries its own unit's class. See QuickBooks first sync walkthrough.

Setting it up: six shops, in order

Take a glass company with six shops: Nashua, Manchester, Concord, Salem, Lowell and Worcester. This order means nobody's screen changes until you're ready.

1. Create the units. Use Add or rename business units on the Business Units page. Name them what your staff call the shops ("Nashua", not "Location 004"), because that name sits on every screen all day.
2. Give each register its unit. Do this on Registers & stock. Walk the list and check that the "Computer" column matches where each machine actually sits. A register left on the wrong shop stamps every cash payment with the wrong "taken at".
3. Assign stock locations. Each shop's stockroom goes to its shop; the central warehouse stays Shared.
4. Tick dispatch teams. The Nashua mobile crew gets Nashua (and maybe Manchester, if they cover it). Leave a floating team unticked so every shop can book it.
5. Set each person's home unit and "may work in". Do this on the Staff tab. This is the step people notice: from here on, anyone who hasn't picked a unit opens in their home shop. Give floaters and managers who cover several shops those shops, or leave them on Any unit.
6. Decide which roles keep View All Business Units and Switch Business Units. Counter staff usually lose "View All" and keep "Switch". The owner, bookkeeper and general manager keep both. Change one role at a time and try it before moving on.
7. Fill in Documents for any shop that should print its own address, and pick each shop's sales tax location if you use them.
8. Test as a real person. Log in as a Salem counter user. Check that the lists open on Salem. Then look up a Nashua customer, open their job, and take a test payment at the Salem register. Run the Business Unit Revenue report and confirm the payment shows as taken in by Salem for Nashua.

Common mistakes

• Treating units as security. They're views only. If you need someone unable to see certain records, that's a role and permission question, not a business unit one.
• Taking "View All Business Units" away from the bookkeeper. They then see only their own unit's totals. The company-wide reports and the month-end settlement both need someone who sees every unit.
• Removing "Switch Business Units" from staff who cover other shops. They can still find records through search, but every list opens on their home shop. Keep the permission, and narrow May work in instead.
• Booking another shop's job without switching. The job lands in the unit you're sitting in, and so does its revenue. Switch first, or check the job's business unit before you save.
• Expecting a unit's totals to include unassigned money. Invoices with no unit, such as old standalone invoices, are excluded from every unit's totals. If the per-unit rows don't add up to what you expect, look at the Unassigned row.
• Running payroll from a time report filtered to one unit. Overtime is worked out on the hours shown only. Someone who worked 30 hours in Nashua and 15 in Salem shows no overtime in either. Run payroll on all units.
• Adding a second unit "for later". The moment two units are active, the pill appears for everyone. Only add a unit when the location is real.
• Naming units differently from their QuickBooks Classes. "Nashua" in Suprata and "Nashua NH Store" in QuickBooks makes mapping error-prone. Keep the names identical.

Related articles

• Business unit revenue
• Using tills and cash drawers
• Charging tax where the work is done
• The time clock
• The permission catalog
• QuickBooks first sync walkthrough