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How to Set Up Customers with Multiple Branches

Two ways to handle multi-branch customers - one for shared account numbers, one for separate

When You'd Need This

You've got a customer with multiple locations - maybe a head office and a few branches, or a franchise with regional warehouses. They need to place orders through your portal, but the way those branches are set up in your system matters. Do they each have their own account number? Or do they all operate under one?

That's what determines which approach to use. There are two ways to handle this, and picking the right one upfront saves you from having to redo it later.

Which Approach is Right?

It comes down to one question: does each branch have its own account number, or do they all share one?

 


Option 1: Sales Reps

Best for: each branch has its own account number

This is the more common setup. You'll create a separate customer account for each branch, then set up a sales rep account that can switch between them. Think of the sales rep as the person at head office (or on the accounts team) who places orders on behalf of each location.

Heads up: This approach is NOT compatible with Kinein's Sales Rep Sync feature (where sales reps are synced from Fishbowl). If you set up a head office user as a sales rep for these branch accounts, it will replace any sales rep that would otherwise be synced to them from Fishbowl. If you rely on sales rep sync, please review Option 2 instead.

How to set it up:

  1. Create a customer account for each branch - each one gets its own account number and email address.
  2. Create a sales rep account for the person who'll be placing orders on behalf of the branches.
  3. Assign the sales rep to each branch account. This is what lets them switch between locations when they log in.

Once that's done, the sales rep can log into the portal and switch between branch accounts to place orders for each one separately. Each branch keeps its own order history, invoices, and pricing.

The following video is an overview of how to traditionally set up Sales Reps that sync from Fishbowl. The difference for a multiple branch scenario is the head office sales rep user won't be set up in Fishbowl first.

 


Option 2: Shared Account

Best for: all branches operate under one account number

This is the simpler path. If all your customer's branches share the same account number, you don't need separate accounts for each one. Just set them up as a single customer - the central user logs in and places orders like any other customer would.

The tradeoff is that all branches share the same order history and pricing. If that works for your customer, this is the way to go.

Things to Watch For

  • Pick your approach before you start. Switching from a shared account to separate branch accounts later means re-creating customer records and migrating order history. Better to get it right upfront.
  • Sales Rep Sync conflict. If you're already using Kinein's Sales Rep Sync to pull reps from Fishbowl, Option 1 will override those assignments on any branch accounts you set up. This one catches people off guard - make sure you know whether sales rep sync is active before choosing your approach.
  • Each branch account needs its own email address. If you're setting up Sales Reps (Option 1), Fishbowl requires a unique email per customer account. A common pattern is branchname@yourdomain.com.
  • Sales rep access is per-branch, not global. You need to explicitly assign the sales rep to each branch account. If you add a new branch later, don't forget to assign the rep to it too.

Still Stuck?

If you're not sure which approach fits your customer's setup, or you're running into issues getting the sales rep assignments working, shoot us an email at support@kinein.com and we'll help you sort it out.