Multi-Site Overview

About Sites and Entities

Logically, a site is any place where work is done. Thus, a site may correspond to company headquarters, a manufacturing plant, or a distribution center. Physically, a site contains an instance of an application database.

Sites may report to financial reporting units called entities. An entity is a site that contains an instance of the application database. The entity has a specific currency, a chart of accounts, and the ability to produce financial statements. For financial reporting purposes, you can assign sites to report to an entity. Sites can report to only one entity, and they must share characteristics with the entity such as account formatting, account numbers, and base (domestic) currency.

Sites and entities are defined during database server installation, and additional information about each site and entity is set up on the Sites/Entities form. This information includes the intranet used by the site/entity and any linked sites. Replication rules may be set up to transfer data between sites, or master sites may be specified to maintain data for multiple sites.

Site groups may also be set up to combine data for sites performing related functions (for example, A/R payment generation or subcomponent manufacturing). Sites in a group do not have to be reporting to the same entity, but they must be sharing the appropriate data through replication.

You can add more sites later, as required by your situation. You can also create new entities, add a new site to an existing entity, and move sites from one entity to another.

Company Hierarchies

A corporate entity can have child entities (for consolidating reporting at different levels), and each entity can have child sites. Each site can contain multiple warehouses, and each warehouse can contain multiple item stockroom locations to store inventory.

This chart shows the hierarchical relationship between components of a company.

Here, Sites A, B, and C are grouped to form Entity 1. There are two warehouses under Site A: Main and Dist. There are three locations shown under the Main warehouse: RAW1, FG2, and INS3.

Material Transfers Between Sites

There are two different ways to move or transfer items or material between Service Management sites:

• Multi-site Quantity Move: Use the Multi-Site Quantity Move form to perform simple, quick movements of inventory where there is relief of inventory in one site and receipt in another. A multi-site quantity move does not require paperwork and assumes no transit time.
• Transfer Order: A transfer order is used for the planning and controlling of stock movement and availability. When a transfer order requests that the material be transferred from the shipping site to the receiving site, the shipping site must be aware of this transfer order. If the material is being transferred to the receiving site from the shipping site, the receiving site must be aware of this transfer order. After the transfer order is entered at one site, the system creates a complementary record automatically at the other site. In addition to in-transit visibility, transfer orders support these features:
  • Landed cost
  • Full cross-referencing capability with jobs, purchase orders, and sales orders
  • The ability of the "From" site to use price codes
  • Shipping paperwork and Pro-Forma invoices
  • Multiple currencies

Both multi-site quantity moves and transfer orders support the use of lots and serial numbers.

Price Codes

The price code determines the costs that are used in multi-site quantity moves or transfer orders. You can set up price codes for sites that report to different entities. If both sites are in the same entity, price codes are not used.

Accounts

Multi-site transfer accounting automates inter-company financial transactions and inter-company financial consolidation. Parameter set-up is provided for profit/cost eliminations, and offers separate account tracking for inter-company profit, cost, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, sales, and cost of sales.

Accounts must be set up to establish site relationships and default account numbers that record inter-entity financial transactions. When initiating either a move or a transfer between sites, the costs and account numbers that default for the transaction come from the Inter-Site Parameters form and are relative to the site that initiated the transaction.

Inter-Site Parameters

The Inter-Site Parameters form must be filled out before any A/P, A/R, or transfer multi-site activities taking place. These parameters establish the relationship between the sites ("inter" or "intra") and identify the inter-company accounts numbers to be used during transactions. If your sites are set up to replicate Site Admin data, you can enter these parameters in one site and all the others update automatically.

Functions where Entity Data Is Not Available

Many system forms include a "Site" field that allows you to select a site. Sometimes, both sites and entities are listed; however, if the data on the form is not applicable to entities, then only sites are listed.