Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Multi-entity Overview
• Entity Hierarchies
• Manage Multi-entity Products
• Manage Roles and Permissions
• Reference: System Behavior Notes

Introduction

This guide explains how to enable, configure, and maintain Multi-Entity functionality in Ordway. It provides concepts, task instructions, system behavior notes, and governance recommendations so finance, operations, and platform teams can administer entities within a parent/child organizational structure.

Purpose

Multi-Entity allows organizations to centralize billing, finance, and product management across multiple legal entities, currencies, and geographies.

Audience

Delivery engineers, billing analysts, finance leads, platform administrators, and documentation authors responsible for enabling and operating Multi‑entity features.

Preconditions

• Multi‑entity must be enabled by Ordway Support or your Customer Success Manager.
• You must have appropriate Ordway permissions for entity, user, product, and customer management.
• For integrations, ensure NetSuite or other ERP connections are configured and the required object mappings are prepared.

Multi-Entity Overview

Multi-Entity provides a hierarchical structure—parent, child, and grandchild entities—allowing global organizations to centralize configuration while supporting local accounting and operational differences.

Key Characteristics

• Customers and Products can be shared from parent to child entities.

• GL mappings and accounting configurations are maintained at the entity that posts to the GL.

• Users can be assigned to one or multiple entities depending on their role.

• Roles created at the parent propagate to all child entities.

Minimum Required Objects

To operate Multi-Entity (especially with integrations), the following must exist:

1. Customers

2. Chart of Accounts

3. Products

Entity Hierarchies

Ordway displays entity relationships in a hierarchical structure.

Example Parent Entity: Acme Enterprises

• Child Entity: Acme Industries - Brazil
  • Grandchild Entity: Acme Enterprises Brazil (North)
  • Grandchild Entity: Acme Enterprises Brazil (South)
• Child Entity: Acme Industries - France
• Child Entity: Acme Industries - United Kingdom

Enable Multi‑entity (high level)

• Contact Ordway Support or your Customer Success Manager.
• Confirm the desired parent/child entity structure and who will own top‑level administration.
• After enablement, the Setup menu will display, Manage Entities, Users, Roles & Permissions, and product/customer sharing controls.
  

Navigate Entities

• Use the entity drop‑down in the UI to switch working context between parent and child entities. The selected context determines visible data and permits actions.
  

Create and Manage Entities

1. Log in to Ordway application.
2. On the left navigation pane, click Setup > Organization Structure > Manage Entities. The Manage Entities page is displayed.
   
3. Click ADD on the top-right corner of the page to create a new entity and set hierarchy (Parent / Child / Grandchild). The New Entity page is displayed.
   
4. Record entity metadata: legal name, currency, reporting time zone, tax jurisdiction, and default GL mapping owner.
5. Click SAVE and document the entity owner and purpose.

Configure Default GL Accounts 

When Multi‑entity is enabled, Ordway auto‑creates default GL accounts per entity:

• Income Account; Accounts Receivable; Deferred Revenue; Contract Deferred Revenue; Electronic Payments; External Payments; Payment Transaction Fees; Credits; Refunds; Taxes; Free Trial; Realized Gain/Loss; Early Pay Discount; Late Pay Charge.

Recommendation: review and align these defaults to your chart of accounts immediately after entity creation.

Manage Multi-entity Products

Products can be shared across entities within the same organization structure. Example: A Parent organization can share both Customers and Products to their child entities. 

Add a New Product

1. Navigate to Menu > Products & Plans > Products.
2. Click Add to create a new Product. Follow the steps provided in Manage Products.

Share an Existing Product to Entities

1. Locate the Product. 
2. Click Add to Entities from the three-dot icon for an existing product to add to one or more entities.

2. Select the target entities and click SAVE.

Edit Products from the Top-Level Entity

1. Click Edit from the three-dot icon for an existing product.
2. Edit as needed and click SAVE.

3. Click Delete from the three-dot icon for an existing product to delete it.

Edit Products from a Child Entity

Edit Products as needed within a child entity. Changes made do not affect the top-level entity.

Notice the org structure icon next to each Product created at the top-level entity. 

Multi-entity Users, Roles, and Permissions

Add Users

Assign Users to various entities within your organization. 

Best Practice

• For users that require access to a single child entity, add the user within the child entity.

• For users that require access across multiple entities, add the user within the parent entity and assign the user to their respective entities.

Steps

1. Log in to Ordway application. 
2. On the left navigation pane, click Setup > Organization Structure > Users. The Users page is displayed.
3. Click ADD to create a new user. The New User page is displayed.
   
4. Provide an Email address and User Name for the new user.

5. Click the Send Invitation Email toggle to automatically email the new user with their login credentials.
6. Click the checkbox for each Entity and assign the Role for the new user. The Role is required for each Entity. At least one Entity is required for each user.
7. Use the Status toggle to disable a user when needed. 
8. Click SAVE when finished.  The confirmation message "User successfully added" appears.
   
9. The User Preferences section is displayed; lets you choose the Date format and Default row counts for lists and line‑item details. 
   • Date format
   • Default rows per list page
   • Default rows per line items details page
10. Click SAVE to save the changes.

Edit or Delete Users

1. Log in to Ordway application.
2. On the left navigate pane, click Setup > Organization Structure > Users. The Users page is displayed.
   
3. Click Edit from the three-doted icon for an existing user to edit corresponding information. 
4. Make changes as necessary by adding or removing entity access and click SAVE. The confirmation message "User successfully modified" appears.
5. Click Delete from the three-doted icon for an existing user to delete them. Deletion is only allowed if the user’s status is Pending Invite (no last login).
   
6. The Delete Users? confirmation dialog box is displayed. Click DELETE the users. The confirmation message "User successfully deleted" appears.

Manage Roles and Permissions

Manage User permissions across entities within your organization.

Note: A Role added at the top-level entity is automatically made available within all child entities. Also worth noting, changes are reflected in all child entities when a Role within a top level entity is edited.

Steps

1. Navigate to Menu > Setup > Organization Structure > Roles & Permissions.
2. Click Add to create a new Permission Group.

3. Populate the new role: 

• Role Name (Required) e.g. Sales Analyst or Billing Administrator.
• Description (Optional).
• Permission Assignment - select the Modules and Activities this role should have access to. 

4. Click the checkbox for each Module and assign specific Permissions for the new role. Or click Check All to add all Permissions at once and remove the unneeded permissions.
 

Expand or contract each section using the carrot next to each module name. 

5. Save when finished.

Edit Permissions

1. Click Edit from the Gear icon for an existing role to edit associated permissions.
2. Adjust the role as needed and click Save.
3. Click Delete from the Gear icon for an existing role to delete it.

Note: Deleting a Role is irreversible. In addition, Roles with Users associated to them cannot be deleted.

Reference: System Behavior Notes