Owner-Operator and Franchise Model Support

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. 

Example Roles for Access 

This table shows an example of how configurations can limit actions to certain user tiers in the Franchise Owner model.

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.

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