A Business Unit (BU) can be any entity within your company whose revenue you want to track separately.<\/strong> This could be a branch office, affiliate, another company you own, or an internal division that you want to monitor independently from other segments of your company.<\/p>\n Depending on the size of your company, you could have just one business unit or multiple BUs. The ability to create multiple BUs allows you to track orders and revenue down to individual offices\/divisions\/etc.<\/p>\n Many functions and reports in MR9 can be filtered to show results for one business unit, several BUs, or all BUs. Some reports group data by business unit, such as the Daily Register<\/a> and Monthly Journals<\/a> which give each business unit its own page(s) breaking down sales and receipts, plus grand total pages that combine information from all of your business units.<\/p>\n Information you can view\/edit in individual BU listings in MR9 includes their address and contact information; financial info like tax ID; scheduling, production and billing preferences; which accounts to use for different types of financial transactions; your company logo to include on your invoices and statements; and miscellaneous information and notes.<\/p>\n Because MR9 comes with a built-in set of default values, forms, and templates, you only need to set up one thing to start using MR9: a business unit.<\/strong> MR9 requires you to set up at least one BU so you can process receivables. Update the default BU included in MR9 with your company name and ID \u2014 the minimum amount of information you need to include \u2014 and any other info you want to use in MR9 such as company address, contact info, billing preferences, custom accounts, and your company logo.<\/p>\n After designating a single business unit, you can start using MR9, plus you can create additional BUs and customize MR9 to your company. You can update your set-up at any time \u2014 adding\/editing\/deleting BUs and MR9 defaults \u2014 to better meet your needs.<\/p>\n You can enter business units from scratch, or save time and reduce entry errors by copying an existing BU and editing it to create a new BU. All of the BU\u2019s details are copied into the new BU, except company logos.<\/p>\n You can search for business units by city, or you can view all of your business units in the business units main grid. You can sort your results in the grid by one or more columns in ascending or descending order (but when you exit the function, MR9 will revert back to the default order).<\/p>\n From the Business Units results grid, you can view and update any listed BU\u2019s details, add new BUs, and export the grid as an Excel<\/em> spreadsheet or\u00a0a CSV (comma-separated values) file to save, print, share, or use in other applications.<\/p>\n The only information you are required to enter about a business unit is its name and ID.<\/strong> The name will appear in your report headers, invoices and statements, so it might be simply your company name. Different BUs can have the same name.<\/p>\n The ID, however, must be a unique maximum 10-character designation. Keep IDs brief, yet meaningful. For example, you could combine abbreviations for the location and the service provided (LA-DEP for Los Angeles \u2013 Deposition; LA-VID for Los Angeles \u2013 Video).<\/p>\n In addition to the business unit name and ID, enter the BU\u2019s location and contact information under General information. Like the BU name, this information will\u00a0appear in your report headers, invoices and statements, so enter this info as you want it to look on these documents.<\/p>\n While you can have hundreds of business units in MR9, we recommend setting up as few as possible so that when designating a business unit, you don\u2019t have to scroll through a long list of BUs to find one.<\/p>\n If you are entering the BU\u2019s street address or P.O. box number, skip the other fields and enter the zip code. MR9 will fill in the city, state, and country for you.<\/p>\n If you have entered the BU\u2019s address, you can view maps and directions to the address in MR9. You can also add your own directions to or notes about the BU\u2019s listing.<\/p>\n In the Additional pane, enter miscellaneous information about the business unit, including your company\u2019s tax ID associated with the BU, and which BU payments for invoices and statements associated with this BU should be sent to. For example, if you have a P.O. box that you want payments sent to, set it up as a separate BU and select it for remittances.<\/p>\n This is also where you enter your company\u2019s web address, and any information about the business unit that is not covered in other BU fields.<\/p>\n Preferences set in business units will be used automatically in other MR9 functions. In the Preferences section, you enter the business unit\u2019s production and billing preferences.<\/p>\n If you add late charges to invoices, this is where you enter the number of days before you assess a late charge. After the defined number of days passes, the late charge specified in the firm being billed will be automatically\u00a0added to the invoice amount.<\/p>\n You can also choose to show or hide per unit rates when printing detailed invoices that you send to clients.<\/p>\n Default financial accounts are included in MR9, but you can set up your company\u2019s own accounts and\/or designate which accounts MR9 should use for different types of financial transactions involving the business unit. For example, if you use QuickBooks<\/em> for accounting, set up your BUs\u2019 accounts to match your QuickBooks.<\/em> Then you can import your MR data directly into your QuickBooks<\/em> using MR9\u2019s QuickBooks Integrator<\/a>, eliminating the need to re-key financial data.<\/p>\n If you accept credit cards, you set up credit card payment processing fee accounts in your business units, then when processing fees are applied to invoices in Receive Payments<\/a>, they are included in the corresponding accounts.<\/p>\n Upload your properly-formatted company logo into each business unit to automatically include your logo on financial correspondence from MR9.<\/p>\n By default MR9 will print your BU name, address, and contact numbers in standard text on invoices and statements. If you plan to use a company logo, ensure that the image file you upload includes your company info, as the logo will replace the standard text to give your invoices and statements a custom appearance.<\/p>\n When you save a new BU, MR9 asks if you want to restrict access to this BU. Usually you will not want to restrict access: you will want the BU to appear as a selection when entering new orders and performing other functions in MR9. However, there are times when you do not want people selecting a specific BU.<\/p>\n For example if you want a BU that is only used for new orders coming from client requests through MR Connect<\/a>, set up a restricted BU for web orders and select it as the default BU for online requests in Contact – Online Order preferences<\/a>. It will then be used when records requests come from MR Connect but it will not appear as a selection when your staff is setting new orders.<\/p>\n When entering a new order, assigning a business unit is required because whichever BU you select here will follow the order through its entire process. Any revenue generated or any reports you run based on business units will have anything pertaining to this order tied to the BU you select here. You select a business unit in User Preferences<\/a> to be your default for new orders, but you can override the default when setting a new order.<\/p>\n You also select a default business unit to be displayed on report headers. Each report you print out in MR9 displays BU information from the default you select. You can select a different BU from your default BU.<\/p>\n Business units are used in many MR functions. Additional examples:<\/p>\n If you have MR Connect, you must give your contacts access to your business units. Without access to a business unit, your contacts can\u2019t see 0rders related to that BU in their MR Connect. MR9 doesn\u2019t automatically grant MR Connect access because it doesn\u2019t know which BUs should be visible to MR Connect users and which shouldn\u2019t, so you have to denote that yourself in the general Connect preferences (don\u2019t forget to do this when adding new BUs).<\/p>\n Business unit access in MR Connect is different from access in MR9. Your contacts don\u2019t have the option to select business units; access here just means that they can see their orders that are assigned to specific business units by your staff.<\/p>\n Since all orders must have an associated business unit for billing and reporting purposes, we recommend setting up a restricted BU for MR Connect record requests as mentioned above and set it as the default BU for contacts in the general Connect preferences. That way you funnel all new online requests into one place, instead of having them mixed in with orders set up in-house that default to your main BU. Then when you formally schedule a pickup from an online request, you can select the appropriate BU to assign to the order.<\/p>\n TL;DR: Set up business units to cover discrete areas of your business that you want to track performance and other metrics independently. You only need to set up one business unit to start using MR9.<\/strong><\/p>\n Contact:<\/strong> Person who works for a firm you do business with \u2014 such as attorneys, paralegals, and secretaries.<\/p>\n MR Connect:<\/strong> Online repository, orders, and access to your office for clients and others. More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adding BUs to your database<\/h2>\n
Search for business units<\/h2>\n
Basic BU information<\/h2>\n
Other General information tips<\/h3>\n
Additional\u00a0information<\/h3>\n
Preferences<\/h3>\n
Accounts<\/h3>\n
Invoice\/Statement Logo<\/h3>\n
After initial setup, add more information<\/h2>\n
BUs in MR9<\/h2>\n
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Give others access to BUs<\/h2>\n
MR9 concepts in this lesson<\/h4>\n