IMOS On-Prem - Financial and Operations Organization Hierarchy

IMOS offers many ways of organizing your business, both financially and operationally. When considering how to organize your business, IMOS offers you tools that will directly affect your Security configurations and your Financials and Operations reporting. How you structure these tools is ultimately up to your internal business organization, but keep in mind the following when making those decisions.

Master Data Options

IMOS offers four key master data options for classifying a business, and each offers its own advantages.

Impact on Built-in Reports

One of the most straightforward uses of these four classifiers is in reporting. This chart highlights where in IMOS you can use them to filter the most popular IMOS built-in reports. An X designates that the filter is available.

Availability on Forms

It is impossible to report using one of the classifiers if they are not entered; therefore, it is important to ensure that necessary data is classified correctly wherever appropriate. This chart highlights which pieces of IMOS data can be classified using which classifiers.

Default Company on Forms

A Time Charter contract might have Company Code (Short Name) A, and the vessel might have Company Code B. When the Time Charter contract is fixed and scheduled with the vessel, the Voyage Manager will have Company Code B, as it defaults to the Code from the vessel. The Company Code might be changed in the Voyage Manager to C. For invoices and posting, the default Company Code used on the Transaction Data Entry when posting TC items should be A, and for other voyage items it should be B, the Company Code of the voyage.

Recognizing Financial Data

IMOS has a fairly strict split between Operations data and Financial data. As a result of this logical split, it is important that all necessary data classifiers be added before moving information out of Operations and into Financials. The process of moving information from Operations into Financials is called posting.

Posting a Transaction

IMOS can require the following fields to be populated before posting a transaction, via the Chart of Accounts:

• Company
• LOB
• Dept

LOB via Business Rules

The Line of Business (LOB) data classifier is typically considered of higher importance to Financials users, not Operations users. Because of this hierarchy, an Operations user may not be aware of the correct LOB when operating in IMOS, but will still need to create invoices for posting. The IMOS Business Rules table is able to back-apply the LOB to any transaction line item. Simply filling in the LOB field in the Business Rules table will apply that LOB to any line item that matches the specific Business Rule.

Company and Subcompany

IMOS Companies are the most common mechanism for separating different profit centers within IMOS. However, there are times when it still may be necessary to combine profit center data in one of the reports. When this is the case, it is necessary to configure parent Companies and Subcompanies correctly.

Companies

Companies are created using the Address Book in the Data Center. You must set the counterparty type as W (Company Info).

Subcompanies

Subcompanies are also W-type Companies in the Address Book. A Subcompany may be entered on a contract in lieu of a Company. When reporting on a primary Company, it will pull in all data assigned to it and to its Subcompanies. For Financial reports, it is also possible only to report on Subcompanies. In many cases, IMOS will create default Subcompanies of Vessels.

To make a Company a Subcompany, in Company Information, enter the primary Company in the Company Name field and then enter Subcompanies into the table below.

Notes on Implementing

It is very difficult to provide a single recommendation for how to implement these different classifiers. Instead, here are some tips and tricks for reviewing each:

Forcing Hierarchy

IMOS offers a configuration flag to enforce hierarchy: CFGUseCompanyLobTradeAreaHierarchy

When enabled, LOB records can be assigned to a Company, and Trade Area records can be assigned to an LOB. When selecting the LOB on a contract, the options will be limited to those associated with the Company assigned on the contract. Likewise, when selecting a Trade Area, the options will be limited to those associated with the LOB assigned on the contract.

After enabling the configuration flag, the following configuration must be done:

• In Trade Areas, set the Parent LOB field per Trade Area
• In Lines of Business, set the Parent Company per LOB

Here is an example of two Companies, each with two LOBs and an assortment of Trade Areas. In this example, the Companies are different regional desks that operate from different offices and focus on specific Trade Areas.

Company

• The most strict reporting element for Financials reports
• Easily made mandatory on most data entry forms
• Considered a profit center by IMOS
• An invoice is issued from a single Company
• All users of IMOS should understand how Companies are set up

Line of Business

• Less available for built-in reporting filters
• Able to require LOB before posting a transaction
• Business Rules functionality allows for Financials to back-fill LOB into transactions before posting
• Operations users do not need to understand LOB

Department

• Less available for built-in reporting filters
• Able to require Dept before posting a transaction
• More likely Operations users should understand Departments

Trade Area

• Cannot require Trade Area before posting
• Available on all major Operations forms
• Commonly used as a reporting element in the Trading module
• Operations users should understand Trade Areas
• Trade Area can be renamed when using the following flags together: CFGTradeAreaHeader, CFGTradeAreaPrompt, CFGTradeAreaText

Configuration Flags Grid

Implementing these classifiers across the whole system requires multiple configuration flags. This table breaks down which flags affect which field per form.