Why one branch behaves differently from its siblings — transcript

Presentation 1 of 7 in Branches and locations, and what each setting changes · about 14 minutes · for the whole-system operator — you run the books.

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This lesson is for you if one of GadgetSphere’s twenty-two shops behaves differently from the other twenty-one and nobody can say why. You already know how to create a branch and a location. This course is about what each setting on them changes afterwards, in sales, at the counter, in stock and in e-invoicing — and this first lesson is the map you use before you open anything, starting with what a branch is once a document is finalised, which is not on any screen you can open. About fourteen minutes.

Step 1 — Name the three records you are working on

A tenant is the whole BigLedger account. Inside it, a company is a legal entity: the one that files accounts, carries a tax registration, holds a chart of accounts and owns a ledger. A branch is an operating unit of that company — a shop, a warehouse, an online channel. A location is the physical place stock actually sits. Every document, every stock movement and every report line is tagged with all three, and every ledger, report and stock query is filtered by them. They are also the only three things a permission can be narrowed to, so who may see what is drawn along the same lines. They are created in that order — company, then branch, then location — or the branch creates its location as it is saved.

Reference: Organization — Overview

Step 2 — Know what a branch is on a document before you tune one

After this step you will know why a branch report and a debtors listing disagree, which is the question a multi-branch group asks first. A branch is not only a record you configure. It is a column, and it sits on the document header and separately on every line — alongside a profit centre, which is an independent second cut for a business line, a department or a project, not another word for branch. So one invoice can carry lines belonging to two branches. When it is finalised the postings take those columns unevenly. Revenue, tax and charge lines take the line’s branch. The receivable always takes the header’s. The stock movement takes the line’s, with no fallback at all.

Reference: Organization — Branch, profit centre, and the dimensions a document carries

Step 3 — Draw the consequence for your chart of accounts

After this step you will not build eight hundred general ledger codes you never needed. Because a journal line already knows its branch, a revenue code per product per branch — smartphone sales at Klang Valley one, smartphone sales at Penang one — spends a dimension you already had to produce a split a report gives you from a column. Twenty-two branches by forty product lines is eight hundred and eighty codes, recreated every time a shop opens, and you still have no way to cut revenue by business line. Keep one revenue code per product family and let the branch come from the document. Cash and bank codes are the exception: those keep a branch suffix, because each one is a separately reconciled balance rather than a slice of one.

Reference: Organization — Branch, profit centre, and the dimensions a document carries

Step 4 — Learn the three places a branch setting can live

After this step you will stop hunting for a setting on the screen it is not on. A branch setting lives in one of three places. Most sit on Branch Edit in the Organisation applet, across a dozen tabs, of which Details, Location, Settlement, Marketplace and Intercompany Configuration are the ones other modules actually read. Some sit inside the applet that consumes them: the point of sale keeps its own per-branch item category filter, menu list, pricing scheme priority and receipt header, and the cashbook keeps a per-branch default settlement method for each tender type. And some do not exist on the branch at all, because the branch inherits the company’s value. Decide which of the three you are looking for before you start clicking.

Reference: Organization — Screens and menus

Step 5 — Know which way an override runs

After this step you can predict which value a document will use. Currency, five-cent rounding, the rounding item and the group discount item exist on both the company and the branch, and the branch value is the override the point of sale reads. Timezone is the one to be careful about. The marketplace date-window resolver reads the branch first and falls back to the company, but the shared timezone handler that the report generators use looks up a branch only when the branch is blank, so in practice your reports take the company’s zone, then the tenant default, then Kuala Lumpur. Setting a branch timezone changes marketplace windows and very little else.

Reference: Organization — Company Details tab

Step 6 — Remember that a branch is also a permission boundary

After this step you will stop treating “I cannot see it” as a settings problem. Permissions here are server-side: every screen calls endpoints guarded by a permission family, granted through the Permission Wizard, a permission set or a role, and targeted at a company, a branch or a location. Anyone holding tenant owner or tenant admin passes every check, which is why it works for you and not for them. So a colleague who can open one branch’s documents and not another’s has a permission target, not a branch setting, and no amount of editing a perfectly correct branch record will change it.

Reference: Core Module — Who can see what

Step 7 — Compare the odd branch against a healthy sibling

After this step you will have narrowed the problem to one row, and the order is the whole content of this step. First, open Branch Edit for the branch that misbehaves and for one that behaves and read the Details tabs side by side — most differences are on that tab, and reading two of them together finds in a minute what reading one finds in an hour. Second, if the tabs match, go to the applet the symptom belongs to: the point of sale for a counter problem, the cashbook for a missing payment button. Only third, look at permissions. Doing those in any other order is how people lose a day.

Screen: Branch Edit, Details tab, showing Main Location, Delivery Location, Default Entity Branch, Timezone and Skip E-Invoice for two branches opened one after the other

Reference: Organization — Branch Details, Pick Pack, Extension and Marketplace

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Name the three records you are working on"]
  s2["Step 2 — Know what a branch is on a document before you tune one"]
  s3["Step 3 — Draw the consequence for your chart of accounts"]
  s4["Step 4 — Learn the three places a branch setting can live"]
  s5["Step 5 — Know which way an override runs"]
  s6["Step 6 — Remember that a branch is also a permission boundary"]
  s7["Step 7 — Compare the odd branch against a healthy sibling"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  s6 --> s7

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

1. Where is a branch's default settlement method for each tender type set? On the branch's Settlement tab in the Organisation applet
In the Cashbook applet's Branch Settings — and the point of sale, not the cashbook, is what reads it
On each settlement method's own record, once per company

2. You set a timezone on one branch. What does it change? Marketplace date windows, which read the branch first — reports keep taking the company's zone
Every report, statement window and document date for that branch
Nothing until the company timezone is cleared

3. A colleague can open GS-KV-01's documents but not GS-PEN-01's. Where do you look first? The branch record, for a status or a missing main location
The point-of-sale branch settings for that branch
The permission that grants them access, which is targeted at a company, branch or location

4. Five-cent rounding is set on the company and again on the branch. Which does the till use? The company value, because the branch value is only a suggestion
The branch value — currency, rounding and the group discount item are branch overrides read by the point of sale
Whichever was saved most recently

5. One sales invoice carries lines for two branches. Where do the revenue and the debtor land? Both on the header's branch — a document belongs to one branch
Revenue splits per line; the debtor lands whole on the header's branch
Both split per line, so a branch profit and loss always ties to an aged debtors listing

Answer key

In the Cashbook applet's Branch Settings — and the point of sale, not the cashbook, is what reads it — Cashbook — Applet settings
Marketplace date windows, which read the branch first — reports keep taking the company's zone — Organization — Company Details tab
The permission that grants them access, which is targeted at a company, branch or location — Core Module — Who can see what
The branch value — currency, rounding and the group discount item are branch overrides read by the point of sale — Organization — Branch Details, Pick Pack, Extension and Marketplace
Revenue splits per line; the debtor lands whole on the header's branch — Organization — Branch, profit centre, and the dimensions a document carries

This is a self-check. Your answers are marked in your browser and stay there — nothing is sent anywhere, nothing is recorded, and the marking is readable in the page source, so it is not a credential. Open the answer key at any time.

Next: Main Location, and where your stock actually lands · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation

Last updated on September 17, 2026

Why one branch behaves differently from its siblings Main Location, and where your stock actually lands