Organizational structures

General information

The organizational structure allows the client (company) to be divided into groups and is the top organizational element for all groups of the same type. This usually refers to hierarchical structures such as the organizational chart.

The organizational structure is therefore the basic element in which the individual groups are combined. The organizational structure is a self-contained system - it is not possible or sensible to transfer a group to another organizational structure.
The following types of organization can be assigned to an organizational structure:

• Hierarchical organizational structure
• Cost centers
• Project groups
• Loose groups
• Locations
• Accounting areas

Types of organization

Hierarchical organizational structure

The first organizational structure created is always the hierarchical organizational structure. At least one hierarchical organizational structure must exist for each company in order to be able to create further organizational structures.

The organizational chart of the company (client) is shown here. This hierarchy determines the relationships between the groups (departments). A top-level group can be defined in the organizational structure for this purpose (e.g. Management Board). In addition, parent and subordinate groups (classification in the "Groups" menu item) determine the appearance of the organizational chart and the behavior of the groups in relation to each other.

A person can only belong to one hierarchical group at any one time, but can also be a member of various project groups, loose groups or cost centers.

While the use of all other organizational structures is optional, one hierarchical organizational structure must exist for each client so that people can be assigned to it!

Other Groups

Loose Groups

The Loose group organization type is used for groups without a systematic organizational purpose. This means that there are no relationships between the defined groups and the groups are not intended for purposes such as organizational structure, process organization or cost centers. Examples of such groups arise from the need to group employees according to various criteria, e.g. from a time management perspective --> part-time employees, active/leaving employees, flat-rate employees, etc...

These groups are optionally displayed in the selection of organizational units in the standard reports and can therefore be used as alternative selection criteria in addition to the classic characteristics such as departments, teams, etc. In the case of loose groups, there is no hierarchical relationship between the groups. Depending on the settings, an employee can be assigned to several loose groups or a single group membership can be ensured.

Project groups

In principle, these work in the same way as loose groups. The subdivision between loose groups and project groups allows a clear thematic separation. Employees who are assigned to defined hierarchical groups but work on different, overlapping projects are summarized here.

Cost centers

When grouping employees according to cost centers, it is defined, among other things, who covers which costs for which expenses. Classification by cost center is useful for business trip accounting or electronic meal ordering, for example. Here it is possible to group employees together in defined cost centers (regardless of hierarchical assignment), but an employee can only be assigned to ONE cost center at any one time.

Locations

If locations are defined as an organizational structure, this can be used to arrange the groups of different locations. Here too, an employee can only be assigned to one location at a time.

Payroll areas

The organization type Payroll area is part of the Payroll Services module, which allows employees to be grouped into groups specific to their payroll accounting, for instance differences in the time of salary payment (start or end of month).

Relationship to roles and deputies

In the event of holidays, etc., it is often advisable to define a deputy for each person responsible who participates in a workflow process, who takes over their functions in the workflow in the event of absence.
This deputy can be defined manually or derived automatically from the organizational chart. The basic rules for this are usually:

• The next most senior superior is the next logical deputy for a superior if there is no explicit nominee.
• A superior should not be able to approve their own requests, nor should a subordinate deputy be able to do so.
• An automatic mechanism for determining a possible deputy along the competence path upwards should be limited to a certain organizational level (no CEO should receive a time correction request from an employee).

More information can be found under "Roles" or in the admin manual of the "Workflow" module.