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Working with Multiple Entities ​

Some clients are a single company. Others are a group — a parent with subsidiaries, branches, or investments, each affecting how the books roll up. This guide covers how to record a client's entity structure, how bank accounts are tied to the right entity's books, and where entity scope shows up across the workspace.

For running standalone and consolidated reports (currency translation, intercompany eliminations, review banners), see Multi-Entity & Consolidated Reporting. For close-time consolidation mechanics, see Multi-Entity & Intercompany.

Single-entity clients

If a client is one company, none of this applies — there are no entity controls to set, and the screens below stay hidden. Everything runs against the one set of books.

Recording the entity structure ​

Open a client's Ownership & structure section to describe how its entities roll up for consolidated financials. You'll find it in two places:

  • Settings > Clients > [client] > Entities — the ongoing home for a client's structure.
  • The Additional Entities step of the onboarding wizard, when you first set the client up.

The panel lists the client's entities as a tree, with an Add entity button. When ownership details are still missing, a calm "A few details are still needed" note lists exactly what to fill in — you can add the rest whenever you have it.

Add or attach an entity ​

Choose Add entity, then:

  1. Name a new entity, or switch to Attach existing to bring an entity you already have into the structure.
  2. Pick the Parent — the entity this one rolls up into, or None (top level) for the group's top entity.
  3. Choose the Relationship:
    • Subsidiary — consolidated into the group's financials. Enter the ownership %.
    • Branch / division — the same legal entity, so there's no separate ownership; ownership is fixed at 100%.
    • Affiliate / investment — an investment that is not consolidated. Enter the ownership %.
  4. Set Ownership % where the relationship needs it. Ownership is what makes consolidated financials accurate, so subsidiaries and affiliates ask for it; branches and divisions don't.
  5. Set the Effective from date — the day this relationship takes effect.
  6. Save. The entity joins the structure tree.

If a value doesn't fit, the form explains what's wrong next to the field so you can correct it and save.

Edit a relationship ​

Open an entity in the structure to change its parent, relationship, ownership, or effective date. Edits are effective-dated: the change is recorded as of the date you choose, and earlier history is preserved — so a mid-year ownership change doesn't rewrite prior periods.

Bank accounts belong to an entity ​

On a multi-entity client, every connected bank account has to be tied to one entity's books — otherwise its transactions have no home. Kraal asks you to confirm this while you map the account.

When you connect a bank (the connect, map, sync flow) and map an account, a multi-entity client shows an extra owning entity choice. As you pick, Kraal confirms the effect in plain language — "This connects [account] to [Entity]'s books." You can't save the mapping until you've chosen, and the screen explains why.

Single-entity clients never see this step — there's only one set of books to use.

Accounts mapped before this change ​

If a bank account was mapped before entity confirmation existed, it may not yet be tied to an entity. On multi-entity clients, Kraal surfaces this as a blocking setup and readiness finding — the account "is not attributed to an entity" — and holds that account's transactions until you confirm. This is expected. To clear it:

  1. Open the client's bank mapping.
  2. Select the account named in the finding.
  3. Choose the entity whose books it belongs to.
  4. Save.

The finding clears and the account's transactions resume importing.

Entity scope across the workspace ​

Once a client has more than one entity, an entity selector appears wherever scope matters — accounting screens, reports, close, and the Dispatch sidebar. Pick an entity to scope the view to its books, or choose the consolidated / all-entities view where it's offered. The selector hides itself for single-entity clients, so there's never a control that does nothing.

The AI assistant follows the same scope: ask for a report and it runs against your selected entity; name another entity or say "consolidated" and it switches scope explicitly rather than guessing. Your entity choice is remembered per client, so switching clients never carries the wrong entity across.

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