Madame Illa runs Illa Hardware in Cotonou. She opens a second shop in Abomey-Calavi. She wants both shops to sell the same products, but each shop must count its own stock, its own sales and its own cash. Her accountant must see the books of both. A customer such as a mason sees none of it. Exowpee solves this with three kinds of space and one rule: every piece of data belongs to exactly one owner, and every member works inside one space at a time.

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The three spaces

An organization is the top-level business. It groups companies and client accounts. A member works in one space at a time, and each space has its own members, profiles and roles. Three rules follow from the glossary and the decision records:
  • All companies sit directly under their organization, at the same level. A company is not the parent of another one.
  • Being a member of one space gives nothing in another. A person can belong to several spaces, but each membership is independent.
  • A client account is not a company. It has its own workspace and works only on its own data.
Signing up creates an organization and its first company. The person who signs up becomes the organization owner, has full rights in the company, and is the first member of the organization space. Only the owner can create further companies and client accounts. See sign up and sign in and run the organization and its companies.

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What is shared and what is private

Data splits along one question: does it describe what the business is, or what happens in one shop? Shared inside the organization. The catalogue belongs to the organization: products, variants, categories, options, units of measure. Madame Illa creates “Cement 50 kg bag” once and both shops sell it. Locations and vehicles are organization assets too; a company uses the ones that are shared with it. A company can also hold a price or a bundle of its own for a shared product, and sell it in its own orders. Private to one company. Operations belong to the company that performed them: prices, bundles, purchases, orders, customers, cash registers and their sessions. When Sènami sells cement at the Akpakpa shop, only that shop’s stock goes down and only that shop’s sales grow. Shared on purpose. Some resources have an owner and an explicit list of participants. A money account belongs to the organization and is linked to the companies that may use it. A transfer or a trip is visible to the companies that take part in it. Nothing is shared unless the organization decides it. Books. Accounting belongs to an owner: the organization, one company or one client account. Each owner has its own books. The books of the organization and of its companies are worked on from the organization space; a client account works on its own books from its own space. Who may work on which books is a separate decision, described in permissions explained.
Products and categories are shared by the whole organization. A company sees the products created by a sister shop, not only its own.

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Where you work

The space comes from the profile you select when you sign in (see authentication explained). From then on, you see and act on the data of that space only: the stock, sales, customers and cash of the company you chose, plus what the organization shares with it.
  • A role given in the Akpakpa company does not apply in Abomey-Calavi.
  • A resource that sits under another in the URL, such as a price under a company, is always read in that parent.
  • A company, a client account or the organization must be selected before you work. Without a profile, only your own account is available.

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Switching space

Sènami works at the Akpakpa shop and, on Saturday, at the new one. She is a member with two profile assignments, one in each company. She signs in, then switches to the assignment she wants: switch company profile. The same applies to client accounts (switch client profile) and to the organization (switch organization profile). Switching issues a new token for the chosen space. Data shown on screen belongs to the previous space and must be cleared by the application. More in your account.

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Common mistakes

  • Mixing up the spaces. After a switch, the data on screen belongs to the previous space and must be cleared.
  • Summing across companies by accident. Reports of one company must group or filter by that company. Reports that add several books exist on purpose, as aggregations over the books the person may access; an aggregation is not a consolidation.
  • Assuming a client account is a company. A client account has its own space, its own session and its own books.

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Where to go next