Tuesday, five in the afternoon. The administrative manager of a cooperative with four nurseries must prepare a number for the board of directors: how much we invoiced in September, location by location. Two locations invoice with the cooperative's VAT number. One invoice with that of a small company created for a project with a local business. The fourth is a nursery under a convention managed within a consortium. Result: four exports, two programs, and a spreadsheet that doesn't add up.
As locations grow, sooner or later the legal entities grow too. In this article, we will see why this happens, what changes in invoicing when there are multiple VAT numbers, and how to keep everything under one license, with a unique view of the revenue.
When the locations are not all the same company
In the 0-6 world, the most common configurations are four, and they often coexist.
- A cooperative, multiple locations, one VAT number. This is the simplest case: all locations invoice with the same company data.
- A group with multiple companies. One company per location, or one for private locations and one for contracted services.
- A consortium coordinating multiple cooperatives, each with its own VAT number and accounting.
- Nursery and kindergarten in the same building, managed by two different entities: for example, an organization managing early childhood and a cooperative managing the nursery.
The legal entity is not a detail. It decides who issues the document, which numbering follows, which VAT regime applies, where supplier invoices go, and which accountant receives the archive. If the management software operates by locations but not by entities, all this falls on the one who invoices.
The location is the unit of work, the legal entity is a setting
In Easy.School, all locations are under the same license: each location is a location, and you can create as many as needed. The separation between legal entities is played at the location level: for each one, you decide which legal entity to invoice with. Two locations can share the same VAT number, a third can have its own.
In practice, the personal data that ends up in the document is entered by accessing the location, in the settings of the administrative area: company name, address, VAT number, tax code, tax regime. Electronic invoicing is also activated location by location, with a subscription form to sign and upload; the Easy.School staff checks the data and activates the service, usually within a few hours and at most within 24 hours on weekdays. If you need step by step, the guide on how to create and configure a new location starts from there.
Thus, the organizational structure and the corporate structure do not have to coincide, and there is no need to multiply licenses and accesses.
Numbering and documents: each entity with its own rules
Each entity that issues invoices has its own progressive numbering, and the accountant expects it to be clean. To help you keep it in order, in the invoicing parameters, you can add characters before or after the number (for example, a prefix for each location) and set a secondary numbering as default, which is also used for credit notes and debit notes. In the document list, you find filters that isolate those specific numberings.
If two locations invoice with the same VAT number, decide with the accountant whether to use a single series or distinguish them with a prefix: it is an accounting choice, not a technical one. The management software also shows a warning when, by mistake, a number different from the normal progressive is set.
VAT rates can also be customized in the administrative settings, and each billable product has its own. This is where the different entities are most felt: the same service can have a different VAT treatment depending on who provides it. On this, the comparison with the tax consultant should be made before issuing the first document, not after.
Supplier invoices: who sees them
More VAT numbers also mean more incoming invoice flows. For each location, choose whether to receive or not receive passive invoices. If receipt is enabled, invoices received with that location's VAT number appear in its purchasing area. If you manage many structures with the same VAT number and do not want that information to be shared in every location, the recommended choice is to disable it in the operational locations and keep it active where the administration works.
The overview: the revenue of all locations
Back to the question of the board of directors. From the main account, in the management of locations, there is a dedicated administration page that summarizes, month by month:
- the list of locations of the license;
- the number of active enrolled children in each location;
- the number of documents issued per location;
- the total amount of documents issued per location;
- a total line that sums everything up.
From here you can also download the tax documents of all locations in a single file, or select only some locations. It is the function that solves the case of multiple entities: if Company B has its own accountant, you download only the locations that invoice with its VAT number and send exactly what it needs. In the archive, the XML files and PDFs are organized into two separate folders.
The number of children next to the revenue is not a detail. Placing the two data points together immediately tells you if a location invoices little because it has few enrollments or because something in the invoicing cycle has jammed. For a finer analysis, by service or by contract, assigned cost centers to each line are needed: the view by location and the one by contract answer two different questions.
Families, shared data, and boundaries between entities
A family with one child in the nursery and one in kindergarten, when the two services are managed by different entities, receives documents from two different entities. This is correct, but it needs to be explained well in September, otherwise the phone call comes: why two invoices?
In the preferences of location management, you can decide whether to share family records between locations. The Yes option is recommended when the locations belong to the same institution, like nursery and kindergarten in the same structure: the secretary finds the family member already entered. The No option is recommended when the locations have different managements or locations, to avoid unnecessary sharing. With distinct legal entities, No is often the more prudent choice also from a privacy standpoint.
Two precautions complete the picture. For each location, you can set a maximum number of children and a maximum space, so one location does not consume the resources of the entire license. And with roles and permissions, the location coordinator sees and manages their location, while the central administration sees all.
Where to start if you currently have multiple management systems
If today the entities live in different programs, the transition is prepared with a simple map, even before opening the management software:
- List the locations and, next to it, the VAT number with which each invoices today and with which it will invoice tomorrow.
- For each VAT number, note the tax regime, current numbering, reference accountant, and who receives the supplier invoices.
- Decide the sharing rules: which locations share family records and who sees which data.
- Activate electronic invoicing location by location and, before the first invoice, ask the staff to verify the parameters with you.
For the rest of the migration, many data can be copied from one location to another instead of being retyped. We have also written about the general organization of multiple locations in how to manage multiple nursery locations with a single management system.
In summary
When the locations belong to different entities, invoicing must follow the legal entity and not just the address. In Easy.School, each location invoices with the entity you choose, with its data, its numbering, and its electronic invoicing, while the main account sees the revenue of all locations in a single table and downloads the documents of all, or only some, in a single file. Tax choices remain to be made with the accountant: the management software keeps separate what must remain separate and gives you the total when needed.
Do you manage multiple locations with multiple VAT numbers? Try Easy.School for free.
