Working with entities

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: May 12, 2020
5 min read

What is an entity?

The entity is the legal body responsible for the payout of the partners and the billing of your advertisers. Therefore, the entity should always contain the official name and registered office address of your company. If multiple companies are legally responsible for the payout of your partners and the billing of your advertisers, make sure you register all of them in the configuration of your platform.

Creating an entity

Getting started

If you haven’t already done so, login to the admin UI and click on ‘configuration’ in administration section of the navigation. Proceed to click on ‘entities’. If you do so, page will appear offering an overview of all the entities that have been registered for your platform so far. To register a new entity, click on the button ‘create new entity’.

Entity details

After you have clicked on the ‘create new entity’ button, a new page will appear containing a form with all the settings of your entity. Please define the following properties:

  • The country in which the company is registered.

  • The registered company name, i.e. the name as it is recorded by the chamber of commerce, board of trade or a comparable institution in the country in which you are registered. Usually the name and legal form of your company is sufficient.

  • The company name is the name of your company as it will be displayed on all your financial documents, i.e. the invoices or deposits for your advertiser and the payment entries for your partners.

  • The bank account number or IBAN should refer to the bank account to which your advertisers should transfer their fees and from which your partners are paid.

  • The SWIFT or BIC should refer to the bank to which your advertisers transfer their fees and from which your partners are paid.

  • The registered address is the address of your company as it is recorded by the chamber of commerce, board of trade or a comparable institution in the country in which you are registered.

  • The ZIP code should also refer to your company’s principal office.

  • The city should also refer to your company’s principal office.

  • Under document pattern you are required to set prefixes for the different document types.

    • The invoice prefix is the prefix that is added to every booking number of the payout entries you create. For example, if you enter ‘AB’ and the booking number of the payment entry is ‘1234’, the booking number displayed on the payment entry will be ‘AB1234’.

    • A prefix further needs to be set for refund, credit, deposit, payout request as well as reversal. The logic of the number displayed on the document is always the same.

    • Please choose the billing and the credit prefix with care, because they cannot be edited afterwards due to the legal status of the booking numbers.

When you are done with the properties of the new entity, don’t forget to click on ‘save’ in the right lower corner of the page. If you do this, you will see the entity you have created appearing in the overview of the entities from which you started.

To check the properties of the entity later on, click on the  icon. After you have created an entity, it make sense to start creating the financial templates related to your new entity.

Default key account

In this section you can set a default key account on advertiser and/or partner level for the entity you are currently editing. The set default key account will then be displayed in the contact widget of the related partners’ dashboards. Please keep in mind that all users of the type ‘platform’ are listed as key account options here. For further information on the platform user properties and types as well as contact detail display pease read the corresponding linked articles.

Editing an entity

If you want to edit an entity, all you have to do is go back to the page with the overview of all the entities. Find the entity you want to edit and click on the  icon next to it. If you do so, a page will appear containing all the settings of the entity. Here, you can change everything you need, apart from the billing and the credit prefix. Please don’t forget to click on ‘save’ when you are done.

Exporting entities

If you want, you can export entities. Just go to the export section in the right lower corner of the page and click on the icon representing the format you would like to export the entity in. Available formats are XLS, CSV and XML. In the export file, you will find all the properties described above. Please note that the first option is recommended for companies using the platform to manage their own performance marketing, whereas the second option is recommended for agencies.

Entities and partner billing

When you are accepting the partners to your platform, you need to allocate them to an entity. The same goes for the advertisers you create on your platform. This allocation is done in order to give you flexibility in relation to the billing of your partners. There are two different methods to bill your partner. Each of them is discussed in detail below.

Method 1: billing via the advertiser entity

If you choose this method, the payment is managed via the entity to which the advertiser is admitted. If you choose this option, your partners will receive a separate payment entry for every advertiser they are active for. They will be paid in the currency the advertiser and, if the partner is liable to VAT, the VAT relevant for the country of the advertiser will be applied.

You can find an example of this option in the figure above. As you can see, the advertisers (in blue) are closely tied with the entities (in green). The partner, in this case a German partner, receives three separate payment entries: on for the Polish entity, one for the German entity and one for the Spanish entity. Figures on the entry generated for the Polish entity will be in PLN, the entries generated for the Polish and the German will be in EUR. On the payment entry for Germany, 19% VAT will be applied.

Method 2: payment via the partner entity

When you choose this method, the partner billing will be managed via the entity to which the partner is admitted. Regardless of the number of advertisers they are active for, your partners will receive one payment entry in which the commission generated for all advertisers  is accumulated. The currency used on the payment entry will be identical with the currency of the partner entity. If VAT is imposed in the country in which the parnter entity is registered, it will be applied on the payment entry.

For an example, please have a look at the figure below:

The commission the German partner has generated for all the Polish, German and Spanish advertiser is all allocated to the German entity, i.e. the entity of the partner. The payment entry is in EURa and 19% VAT is imposed, because the entity is registered in Germany.

Changing the billing method

What method is used for your platform is defined on the platform configuration page. Depending on your rights and role on the platform, you can change the method. Please make sure that before you do so, you inform your partners: due to the differences in currencies and taxes, the new method might be disadvantageous partners that are active for multiple advertisers on your platform.

For brief instructions on how to change the billing method, please read the article on the platform configuration.