Account Hierarchy
Parent-child account relationships handle holding companies, subsidiaries, and MSP clients that operate across multiple legal entities — all under a single view.
When to use hierarchy
Use account hierarchy when a single client relationship spans multiple legal entities or organizational units. Common examples:
Holding company with subsidiaries
A private equity firm owns 4 portfolio companies you manage. The PE firm is the parent; the portfolio companies are child accounts.
Multi-entity law firm or medical practice
A medical group with three practice locations that bill separately but share the same MSP agreement.
Franchise or branch structure
A national brand with regional franchisees, each of whom you invoice separately but manage under a master agreement.
MSP managing another MSP's clients
You're a wholesale MSP. Your partner MSP is the parent account; their end clients are children.
Setting a parent account
On any account's Overview tab or edit form, use the Parent Accountfield to link it to a parent. Type to search for the parent by name.
An account can only have one parent. There is no limit to how many children a parent can have. The hierarchy is displayed in the account header as a breadcrumb:PE Holdings → Portfolio Co A
How hierarchy affects contracts
A contract belongs to a single account. But a master agreement can belong to the parent account while service delivery happens at child accounts. This is handled by:
- Creating a contract on the parent account for the master agreement terms
- Creating separate contracts on child accounts for location-specific billing
- Using the account hierarchy view to see aggregate MRR across parent + all children
Hierarchy in reporting
In the account list, you can filter by parent account to see all child accounts under a specific parent. The parent account's detail page shows a summary of all child accounts with their MRR, health score, and lifecycle status.
MRR rollup reports aggregate across the entire hierarchy — useful for showing a holding company stakeholder their total IT spend across all entities.
MSP-specific edge case: shared client across two MSP legal entities
If your MSP operates under two legal entities (e.g., Acme IT Inc. and Acme Cloud Services LLC) and you manage the same end client through both, you can represent this with two child accounts under the parent client — one per MSP entity — or with two service lines on one contract tagged to different billing entities.
The recommended approach depends on how you bill. If they receive separate invoices, use separate child accounts. If one invoice, use one account with separate service lines.