Legal Units and Sub-units

As an alternative to use extended dimensions for operative purposes, you can define a company structure, which you divide into company sub-units, representing business units, for example geographical areas or other management perspectives. A group company representing the actual company and subsidiaries representing the business units can be defined for this purpose, but note that eliminations of investments in subsidiaries will not work properly. The acquisition values have to be entered on one of the subsidiaries making eliminations occur on the group level, which represents the company. An alternative is to use legal units and sub-units. Acquisition values can be stored and calculated on a legal unit, as if it was an ordinary subsidiary, which means that the elimination of investments will be handled correctly.

Define Legal Unit and Sub-units

To use operative units in the company structure, make the following definitions:

  • Define the legal company as if it was an ordinary subsidiary or parent company, but instead of selecting subsidiary as company type, select Group and Legal Unit.
  • Connect the legal unit to the group company with the same percentage as if it would have been an ordinary subsidiary or parent company.
  • Define the sub-units representing the operative units with company type Subsidiary. When you connect the unit to the legal unit it will be saved as company type subsidiary - sub-unit.

Legal Company Structures

In a legal company structure the legal unit represents a legal company. Period data is entered on sub-units and consolidated into the legal unit, where the legal unit will have period values representing the legal company. The sub-units are parts of the legal company not owned by any other party, and therefore no investment eliminations are made on them. Instead shareholdings and investments are stored on the legal unit, like for any other subsidiary.