Table of Contents
Purpose
Among multi-branch companies, one branch may occasionally provide substitute work for another branch. For example, the main branch of your company has a tree division, but none of your other branches do. When a customer at another branch requests tree work, it may make sense to bring out a team from your main branch to provide this work rather than giving that business to a competitor. This article outlines the best ways to manage branch to branch subcontract work.
In this article, we mention these terms. They are defined below:
Employee Branch of Origin: The branch that the employee, who is doing the subcontracted work, is originally employed with.
Property Branch: The branch that is tied to the property needing the subcontracted service.
Considerations
Do you have Branch-specific EIN/Payroll?
YES – if payroll is processed at the Branch level, you may need to set up two separate opportunities.
NO – if all payroll is processed at the Company level (and not at the Branch level), it may be possible to manage this in a single opportunity. If this is the case, then consideration #2 may be ignored.
Who is going to pay the employee for this work? When an employee provides work for another branch, it is important to understand which branch will be handling payroll for those hours. Remember that in Aspire, payroll will be reported (and exported) to the work ticket’s branch.
Who is going to invoice your customer for this work? Whichever branch is assigned to the opportunity will wind up sending the invoice, and the revenue will be reported to this division. (Aspire will assign the property branch by default, but you can do a branch override on the main opportunity page or inside the estimated service.)
How should costs be reported on your P&L? Job costs allocated to work tickets will be assigned to the branch associated with the work ticket. By default, the branch assigned to the property will be assigned to work tickets. If a branch override is performed on the main opportunity page or inside the opportunity service, then the work ticket will be associated with the override branch.
Option #1: Single Opportunity Associated with Employee Branch of Origin
Use this option in either of the following scenarios:
Branch-Specific EIN/Payroll? | No |
Who will Invoice Customer? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Which Branch Receives Cost on P&L? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Or
Branch-Specific EIN/Payroll? | Yes |
Who will Pay Employee? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Who will Invoice Customer? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Which Branch Receives Cost on P&L? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Estimate a single opportunity overridden to the employee’s branch of origin.
Schedule the tickets and allow employees to log time against said tickets.
Invoice the customer directly.
Costs, revenue, and payroll will all be associated with the employee’s branch of origin.
Option #2: Single Opportunity Associated with Property Branch
Use this option in either of the following scenarios:
Branch-Specific EIN/Payroll? | No |
Who will Invoice Customer? | Property Branch |
Which Branch Receives Cost on P&L? | Property Branch |
Or
Branch-Specific EIN/Payroll? | Yes |
Who will Pay Employee? | Property Branch |
Who will Invoice Customer? | Property Branch |
Which Branch Receives Cost on P&L? | Property Branch |
Ensure that the employees are set up in the property branch’s payroll system so their hours against this job can be paid.
Estimate a single opportunity, tied to the property branch.
Schedule the tickets and allow employees to log time against said tickets.
Costs, revenue, and payroll will all be associated with the property branch.
Option #3: Two Opportunities
Use this option if the branch of the employee that is doing the work will be managing payroll, but the property branch will be invoicing the customer.
Branch-Specific EIN/Payroll? | Yes |
Who will Pay Employee? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Who will Invoice Customer? | Property Branch |
Which Branch Receives Cost on P&L? | Both |
Estimate one opportunity (tied to the employee’s branch of origin) as T&M with a pay rate equal to the cost of the employee’s labor. The user who manages accounts payable for the branch that will be invoicing the customer should be specified as the billing contact on this opportunity.
Schedule the work tickets. When the work is finished, complete the work.
Send an invoice. This will be sent to the user who manages accounts payable for the branch that will be invoicing the customer. When they remit payment, apply it to the invoice.
Estimate a separate opportunity, tied to the property branch, with all material costs estimated. Labor will be estimated using a sub item with the price quoted by the employee’s branch of origin.
If all services are being subbed out to a sister branch, then none of the work tickets will need to be scheduled. However, if some of the work will be performed by in-house employees, then schedule those tickets as per usual.
Purchase estimated materials to this opportunity.
When an invoice is received from the employee’s branch of origin for the cost of their labor, create a purchase receipt to job-cost that sub labor against this opportunity’s work ticket.
When work is completed, send an invoice to the customer.
Option #4: Single Opportunity with Journal Entry and Extra Step at Payroll
Use this option in the following scenario:
Branch-Specific EIN/Payroll? | Yes |
Who will Pay Employee? | Employee Branch of Origin |
Who will Invoice Customer? | Property Branch |
Which Branch Receives Cost on P&L? | Property Branch |
Estimate a single opportunity associated with the Property’s Branch.
Schedule the tickets and allow employees to log time against said tickets.
At Payroll, these employee hours will report to the Property Branch (this will return an error if hours are exported to Quickbooks Desktop).
Custom lists will need to be built in the Weekly Time Review and Hours Pivot (explained below):
Filter the Weekly Time Review List by Employee Branch | IN | Branch Name. Build and save a list for every Employee Branch that will be sending out employees to perform sub work for other branches.
Filter the Hours Pivot table by Employee Branch and display Branch (which is the Branch the hours are reported against). Build and save a list for every Employee Branch that will be sending out employees to perform sub work for other branches.
Utilize the Employee Branch Weekly Time Review List and/or Employee Branch Hours Pivot to determine total hours for said Branch’s payroll. Create a filter by Branch (which is the Property Branch) to identify hours associated with other Branches this pay period. These hours are tied to a Branch other than the employee’s branch of origin.
Invoice the customer directly.
For this option, costs, revenue, and payroll will all be associated with the Property branch inside Aspire, even though the cost of labor technically belongs to the Employee’s branch of origin. A journal entry will need to be made at month end to recognize this in your accounting system.