Organizations

Manage multiple legal entities within Hidma for better organization, billing, and analytics.

🎥 Video Tutorial

This video introduces the Organizations feature for managing multiple legal entities.

What are Organizations?

Organizations in Hidma represent the different legal entities within your business structure. Think of them as the separate companies or corporate entities you operate under. Perhaps you have a parent consulting company and a subsidiary that handles software development. Or maybe you're part of a group of related companies - an accounting firm, a legal practice, and an advisory business, all under common ownership but legally distinct.

This feature becomes essential when you need to maintain clear separation between these entities. Each organization can have its own billing, its own bank accounts, and its own financial reporting. Introduced in version 1.15, the Organizations feature lets you assign bills to specific legal entities, track which organization a job belongs to, and maintain the kind of separation that both good business practice and often legal requirements demand.

The practical benefit is that you can operate multiple companies within a single Hidma instance while keeping everything properly organized. When you create a bill, you can specify which legal entity is issuing it. When you track payments, you can see which organization's bank account received the funds. Your analytics and reports can filter by organization, giving you clear visibility into each entity's performance.

Why Use Organizations?

When you first start using Hidma, you're working with a single organization. Everything - all your bills, payments, projects, and work - belongs to that one entity. This simplicity works perfectly for businesses operating under a single legal entity. You won't even see "organization" mentioned in the interface because there's no choice to make. Hidma keeps it simple when you don't need the complexity.

The picture changes when you're operating multiple legal entities. Suddenly you need to know: Is this bill going out from ABC Corporate or from ABC Legal Services? Which bank account received this payment - the one belonging to our consulting company or our advisory company? What's the financial performance of each entity individually? Without the Organizations feature, you'd struggle to answer these questions clearly because everything would be mixed together.

Enabling multiple organizations gives you the separation you need. Each entity can have its own bank accounts in the Bank Accounts feature. When billing, you select which organization is issuing the invoice, and that choice affects everything from which bank accounts are available to how the invoice appears. Your reporting becomes more powerful because you can analyze each organization's performance separately, seeing revenue, outstanding bills, and profitability per legal entity. This isn't just about better analytics - it's often a compliance requirement when you're operating separate legal entities that need to maintain distinct financial records.

Setting Up Organizations

Accessing Organizations

1. Go to Settings in the sidebar
2. Click on Organizations
3. You'll see your current organizations listed

The Default Organization

When you first access Organizations, you'll see one organization called "Default Organization". This represents your main entity.

Important: Since there's only one organization at this point, you won't see organization dropdowns anywhere in Hidma yet. Organization selection only appears when you have multiple organizations.

Renaming the Default Organization

To better reflect your actual company:

1. Click on the Default Organization to edit it
2. Change the name to match your company (e.g., "ABC Corporate Services PLC")
3. Fill in optional fields (explained below)
4. Click Save

Creating Additional Organizations

To add another legal entity:

1. In the Organizations list, click Add Organization
2. Fill in the details:

Organization Details:

Field	Description	Required
Name	Legal entity name (e.g., "ABC Legal Services Limited")	Yes
VAT Number	Tax identification number	No
Registration Number	Company registration number	No
Address	Registered business address	No

3. Choose whether this should be the Default Organization (pre-selected in dropdowns)
4. Click Save

Optional Fields

The VAT Number, Registration Number, and Address fields are optional and reserved for future features (such as automatically including VAT information on bills). You can add them now for completeness or leave them empty.

Setting a Default Organization

If you have multiple organizations, you can designate one as the default. This choice determines which organization Hidma pre-selects in all the dropdown menus throughout the system. Think of it as telling Hidma "this is my primary entity" - when you go to create a bill, the default organization will already be selected. When you're recording payments or viewing reports, it starts with your default.

This seemingly small feature saves considerable time if you have, say, three legal entities but do 80% of your work through one main company. Instead of selecting that company from the dropdown every single time, it's already chosen for you. You can always switch to a different organization when needed, but starting with your most-used entity as the default reduces repetitive clicking. And if your business focus shifts, you can change which organization is the default at any time by editing the organization settings.

Using Organizations

Organizations in Billing

Once you have multiple organizations, you'll see new options when creating or editing bills.

When Creating a Bill

1. Go to Bills > New Bill
2. Select the Client
3. NEW: Next to the date range picker, you'll see an Organization dropdown
4. Select which organization this bill should be associated with
5. Continue building your bill as normal

The bill is now linked to that specific organization, and this will be reflected in:

• Financial reports
• Bank account selections (if using Bank Accounts feature)
• Invoice documents (can be customized in templates)

When Editing a Bill

You can change which organization a bill belongs to:

1. Open an existing bill
2. Use the Organization dropdown to select a different entity
3. The bill is reassigned to the new organization
4. Any financial tracking updates accordingly

Organizations and Jobs

A powerful feature: you can assign default organizations to specific jobs, which helps filter unbilled work when creating bills.

Enabling Default Organizations for Jobs

1. Go to Settings > Configuration > Jobs Settings
2. Find Default Organization under "Other Job Settings"
3. Toggle it ON
4. Click Save

Assigning a Job to an Organization

Once enabled:

1. Go to the Jobs page
2. Select a job (e.g., "Accounting Work")
3. Click to edit the job
4. You'll see a Default Organization dropdown
5. Assign the job to an organization (e.g., "ABC Legal Services Limited")
6. Click Save

How This Affects Billing

When you go to create a bill:

Scenario 1: Organization Matches Job's Default

• You select organization: "ABC Legal Services Limited"
• Job "Accounting Work" is assigned to "ABC Legal Services Limited"
• That job's unbilled work automatically appears in the billing view

Scenario 2: Organization Doesn't Match

• You select organization: "ABC Corporate Services"
• Job "Accounting Work" is assigned to "ABC Legal Services Limited" (different organization)
• That job's work is hidden by default (since it's tied to a different organization)

Scenario 3: Show All Work Anyway

• You select organization: "ABC Corporate Services"
• You want to bill work from "Accounting Work" (assigned to different organization)
• Check the "Show all unbilled work" checkbox
• Now you can see and bill work from ALL jobs, regardless of organization assignment

Use Case

This is particularly useful when a job is usually (90% of the time) associated with one organization, but occasionally needs to be billed by another organization. The default organization keeps things organized while the "Show all" option provides flexibility.

Jobs Without Default Organization

If a job doesn't have a default organization assigned, its unbilled work will always appear regardless of which organization you select when billing. This is useful for general jobs that could apply to any legal entity.

Organizations and Bank Accounts

If you're using the Bank Accounts feature, bank accounts are created per organization. This makes sense because different legal entities typically have different bank accounts.

Example:

• ABC Corporate Services has:
  • Current Account (EUR)
  • Savings Account (EUR)
• ABC Legal Services Limited has:
  • Business Account (EUR)
  • Client Trust Account (EUR)

When adding funds or allocating payments, the available bank accounts depend on which organization is selected.

Learn more about Bank Accounts

Common Workflows

Workflow 1: Setting Up Multiple Entities

Scenario: You have two companies in your group

1. Go to Settings > Organizations
2. Rename "Default Organization" to "ABC Corporate Services PLC"
3. Add VAT number and registration details
4. Set as default
5. Click "Add Organization"
6. Create "ABC Legal Services Limited"
7. Fill in its VAT and registration
8. Save

Result: You now have two legal entities to work with

Workflow 2: Billing from Specific Organization

Scenario: Issue an invoice from your second legal entity

1. Go to Bills > New Bill
2. Select client
3. In the Organization dropdown, select "ABC Legal Services Limited"
4. Choose date range
5. Add work to bill
6. Save

Result: Bill is associated with ABC Legal Services Limited

Workflow 3: Organizing Jobs by Entity

Scenario: Most "Audit" work should be for ABC Legal Services

1. Enable Default Organizations: Settings > Configuration > Jobs Settings
2. Go to Jobs page
3. Select "Audit" job
4. Edit and assign Default Organization: "ABC Legal Services Limited"
5. Save

Result: When billing for ABC Legal Services, Audit work appears automatically. When billing for other organizations, it's hidden unless you check "Show all unbilled work."

Workflow 4: Cross-Organization Billing (Occasionally)

Scenario: You usually bill Accounting work for ABC Corporate, but need to bill it for ABC Legal once

1. Go to Bills > New Bill
2. Select client
3. Choose organization: "ABC Legal Services Limited"
4. "Accounting Work" doesn't appear (it's assigned to ABC Corporate)
5. Check "Show all unbilled work"
6. Now you can see and select Accounting work
7. Add to bill and save

Result: Flexibility to bill work from any job to any organization when needed

Best Practices

Recommendations

✅ Use meaningful names - Match your actual legal entity names exactly ✅ Fill in VAT/registration - Prepare for future features that will use this data ✅ Set a logical default - Choose your most frequently used organization as default ✅ Assign jobs thoughtfully - Only use Default Organization for jobs that are genuinely tied to specific entities ✅ Review before billing - Double-check which organization is selected when creating bills ✅ Consistent usage - Train your team on when to use each organization

Future Development

The Organizations feature is actively being developed. Planned enhancements include:

• Automatic inclusion of VAT numbers and registration details on invoices
• Per-organization reporting and dashboards
• More granular permissions per organization
• Enhanced financial separation and reconciliation tools

Stay tuned for updates in future Hidma releases.

Troubleshooting

Problem: Don't see organization dropdown when billing

Cause: You only have one organization Solution: The dropdown only appears when you have multiple organizations. Add a second organization in Settings > Organizations.

Problem: Can't see certain jobs when billing

Cause: Job is assigned to different default organization Solution: Check the "Show all unbilled work" checkbox, or change which organization you're billing for.

Problem: Want to change job's default organization

Solution:

1. Go to Jobs page
2. Select the job
3. Edit and change Default Organization
4. Save changes

Problem: Bill assigned to wrong organization

Solution:

1. Open the bill
2. Use the Organization dropdown to select correct entity
3. Save changes

Related Topics

• Bank Accounts - Managing accounts per organization
• Jobs Settings - Configuring job defaults
• Document Templates - Customizing invoices per organization
• User Roles - Managing team permissions

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Need Help?

Organizations require administrator access to set up. Contact your system administrator if you don't have access to the Organizations page in Settings.