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Parent Companies

Group related client companies under a parent organization for easier filtering and reporting across your entire portfolio.

Updated this week

The Parent Company feature lets you define hierarchical relationships between companies in Productive's CRM.

For example, linking Acme Client Company to a parent ACME. Once set, the relationship is visible from both sides and available as a filter and grouping option across Reports, Insights, and Forecasting.

This is especially useful for agencies managing clients with multiple regional offices or local branches, where reporting by group (rather than individual entity) is the goal.

How It Works

The relationship is visible from both sides of the connection:

  • On the parent company (e.g., ACME) — a Group companies field lists all companies that belong to it.

  • On the child company (e.g., Acme Client Company) — a Parent company field shows which company it belongs to.

A few rules to keep in mind:

  • Each company can have one Parent company.

  • A parent can have multiple Group companies.

  • The relationship is optional. Companies without a parent remain standalone.

  • Circular relationships (e.g., A → B → A) are not allowed.

Setting a Parent Company

  1. Go to CRM > Companies and open the child company (e.g., Acme Client Company).

  2. In the Info tab, find the Parent company field.

  3. Click the field and select an existing company from the dropdown.

  4. The relationship is now active — the parent company's Group companies field will update automatically to reflect this.

📌 Only Admins, Managers, and users with the Add, edit, and archive companies permission can assign or change a parent company.

Viewing the Relationship

Once set, the relationship is visible from both company profiles:

On the child company (e.g., Acme Client Company):

  • The Parent company field in the Info tab shows the assigned parent as a clickable link.

On the parent company (e.g., ACME):

  • The Group companies field in the Info tab lists all companies that belong to it.

📌 The Parent Company also appears as a field in the CRM > Companies.

Removing a Parent Company

  1. Open the child company's Info tab.

  2. Click the × next to the company name in the Parent company field.

  3. The relationship is removed — the company becomes standalone again and no data is lost.

Archived Parent Companies

If a parent company is archived, the relationship remains intact. The archived parent will appear with a strikethrough in reporting views. Use the Show archived toggle in reporting to include or exclude archived parent companies.

Using Parent Company in Reporting

The Parent company field is available as a filter, column, and group by option across reports.

This works across Deals, Budgets, and Invoices — anywhere company filtering is available.

Example filter combinations:

Filter

Returns

Company/Client name = Acme Client Company

Data for Acme Client Company only

Parent company = ACME

Data for all companies in the ACME group


Permissions

📌 Users with the Add, edit, and archive companies permission can also edit the Parent company field, regardless of their permission set.

Permission set

View

Edit

Admin

Manager

Coordinator

Staff

Client

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