Owner-Operator and Franchise Model Support
Overview
The BuyerQuest platform is able to support various organizational hierarchies that allow companies to manage operations in a way best suited to their particular needs. One such example is the Franchise Owner model — from early in its inception, the BuyerQuest platform architecture has been built with a focus on supporting autonomous business units.
The BuyerQuest application can be configured to allow for the management and setup of users, locations, procurement processes, payables flows, and other business functions in a decentralized way across multiple tiers: the Franchise Owner level, Store Manager level, and Store Requestor level.
Features and Functionality
The BuyerQuest platform supports many activities that decentralized procurement organizations need in order to properly run their business. It is designed to provide the desired information to the right people at the right time.
Managing Procurement Documents
Procurement documents can be filtered and restricted at the business unit level, allowing each Franchise Owner to segregate their data from other Owners. This ensures that accounts payable staff and other administrative users are able to access all documents for their organization without privacy concerns across business units.
Viewing Reporting
Similar to how procurement document filtering works, the standard set of reports available within BuyerQuest are also filtered for each business unit. Again, this allows full viewing and analysis of data for a single business unit without privacy concerns across other business units in the organization.
Managing Users
The management of individual users is straightforward and easily available through configuration menus, allowing Franchise Owners or their approved administrators to create and manage the users within their organization. Data can be segregated between business units to ensure that only those users have access to view and edit actions, documents, and reports specific to their individual franchises.
Configurations Overview
There are a number of core configurations that can be leveraged to control what users can access and how they are able to interact with the platform, including: User Permissions Groups, Content Groups, Accounting Values, and Document Rules.
Example Roles for Access
This table shows an example of how configurations can limit actions to certain user tiers in the Franchise Owner model.
Actions |
Franchise Owner / AP |
Store Managers |
Store Requestors |
---|---|---|---|
Submit Procurement Request |
yes |
yes |
yes |
Review Procurement Request - Approve/Reject |
yes |
View Only |
View Only |
Review Procurement Request - Change (REQs User has created) |
yes |
yes |
yes |
Manage Billing Location |
yes |
View Only |
|
Manage Shipping Location |
yes |
yes |
View Only |
Review Purchase Order - Change/Cancel |
yes |
View Only |
View Only |
Review Invoice |
View Only |
View Only |
|
Reconcile Invoice - Approve/Reconcile/Reject |
yes |
View Only |
View Only |
Review Credit Memo |
View Only |
View Only |
|
Manage Users - Create/Enable/Deactivate |
yes |
yes |
|
Review Reporting & Analytics |
yes |
yes = Activity User can complete
User Permissions
User Permissions control what functionality is available to a given user. This extends to site functionality a user can access, what document types a user is able to view (Requests, Invoices, etc.), as well as what actions the user is able to take against those documents (view, change, approve, reject, etc.). Additional Information regarding User Permissions can be found here.
Content Groups
Content Groups provide the ability to control access only to users who need to view and use certain content and functionality within the system. Content Groups drive what documents, locations, users, reports, and products are visible to users within a Content Group. Typically a Content Group would be set up for each autonomous business unit, like an Owner-Operator set of franchises.
Accounting Values and Document Rules
Accounting Values can be used to drive the approval flow. Document Approval and Reconciliation Rules (Requests and Invoices) can be configured based on the Accounting Value(s) to ensure they are routed to the proper Approver. Typically, the Accounting Values would be set up per Store, allowing for flexibility of who should approve for each User.
Franchise Owner Model Use Cases
There are a few common use cases in the Franchise Owner model for which BuyerQuest can provide solutions by recommending configurations of User Permissions, Content Groups, Accounting Groups, and Document Rules to best serve the organization’s goals and objectives.
Use Case 1: Single Store (Franchise Owner with a Single Store Location)
In this Use Case, the Franchise Owner controls a single store/location. Three groups of User Permissions are created: Owner, Manager, and Requestor. The Franchise Owner is associated to the "Owner" level -- this would be configured to give the Owner global access to the set of documents for their Content Group. The Store Managers/Supervisors would be aligned to the "Manager" Permissions Level - this Group will be configured to provide the user permissions to advanced Purchase Request and Purchase Order functions. Finally, the "Requestor" permissions level would have access to submit Purchase Requests only.
One Content Group would be created for the Franchise Owner - this would result in a single autonomous business unit and would limit the visibility of users, documents, locations, and products to users within this unit.
A single Accounting Value (i.e., Store ID) can be used as there is only one location/cost center/business unit to support. This Accounting Value can also be used to route documents to the appropriate user for approval via the Document Rules configurations in the Admin Control Panel.
Use Case 2: Multiple Stores Using the Same Content and Products
The next Use Case is one in which the Franchise Owner controls multiple stores, with each location sharing the same content and product catalog. This setup would retain the same User Permissions as described in Use Case 1 (Single Store), and would be applicable across all locations. Additionally, one Content Group would be created as the stores would leverage the same users, documents, and products across all locations.
In this configuration, multiple Accounting Values will be created; this allows the Franchise Owner to manage transactions on a per-location basis. In turn, Document Rules would be configured to evaluate against the Accounting Values; this will ensure approvals are limited to the correct store location. Additional levels can be configured to further restrict the view of these documents based on the needs of the organization.
Summary of Use Case Configurations
Use Case |
User Permissions |
Content Groups |
Accounting Values |
Document Rules |
---|---|---|---|---|
Single Store |
3 groups created: - Manager - Requestor |
Single Content Group per Franchise Owner |
Single Accounting Value for the store |
Based on Accounting Values or Location |
Multiple Stores, same content and/or products |
Single Content Group per Franchise Owner |
Each Store has its own Accounting Value |
Based on Accounting Values or Location |