Company Structures

A company structure shows how a group of companies relate to each other. IBM® Cognos Controller uses a number of company units to create a company structure. The same input companies can be included in an unlimited number of structures in parallel, distinguished by different consolidation types, for example, in a legal structure and in several management structures. This section describes how to create companies, arrange them in a company structure, determine the sorting order, lock companies for changes, and add further information.

When working with company structures, there are two terms between which you should differentiate:

  • Generating Company Structures - When you generate a company structure the relations are defined between parent company/subsidiary in the consolidation structure, and this is displayed in the form of a tree structure in several levels. This generation process does not take into account information in the investment register.
  • Calculate Ownership Relations - When you calculate ownership relations, simple or complex ownership relations are calculated on the basis of what has been entered in the internal investment register to show this information in the consolidation structure.

You can link or set ownership of companies or subsidiaries to multiple groups but you should not link sub-groups to multiple groups. Linking sub-groups to multiple groups works in a limited situations. In Financial Analytic Publisher that is integrated with Planning Analytics, company structures with cross-owned groups are not supported.

Legal and Management Structures

A legal structure consists of a parent company, one or more legal subsidiaries, and a group company. A parent company or subsidiary can in turn be divided into sub-units, constituting a fictive group for operative purposes.

In a management structure, you may organize your companies according to divisions or business areas. Parent companies and subsidiaries may be placed into different groups.

You can choose from the following approaches when working with management company structures:

  • Work with manually generated company structures.
  • Work with automatically generated company structures where the pre-generated percentage from the associated legal structure is available.