Franchise: Run Every Location From One Account

Overview

Franchise is for a business that runs several locations under one brand, some of them owned and run by franchisees. Every location lives inside your one BestWebby account:

• Locations with their own storefront and shop. A location can have its own storefront (domain, currency and prices) and its own shop with a till. Your products are the master catalogue every location sells.
• Location prices. Each location's prices are its storefront's prices. You set them, or you let each location adjust within a range you choose.
• Local products. Items that sell at one location only.
• A store locator. A public page at /locations on your storefronts with each listed location's address, opening hours, phone, email and a map link.
• Royalty statements. Each month, BestWebby works out each location's royalty and marketing fees from its real orders and refunds. When you issue a statement it becomes an invoice from your business to the franchisee, with your tax rules, payable through your own Stripe account.
• Franchisee logins. People you give the Franchisee role see only the locations you assign them: sales, statements, prices and opening hours. Nothing else in your account.
• Reporting across locations. Sales by location for any dates, with one total per currency.

Franchise is on the Enterprise plan. Find it under Channels > Franchise.

Setting up

1. Set your franchise terms. Under Franchise > Terms (account owner), set the royalty and marketing-fund percentages, any flat monthly fees, a minimum monthly royalty, the setup fee, payment terms, who sets location prices, whether local products are allowed, and whether the store locator is shown.
2. Add franchisees. Under Franchisees, add each business that runs a location, with the billing email, legal name and address. The country and province or state decide the tax on their statements, from your own tax rules (Finance > Tax rules).
3. Add locations. Under Locations, add each location and link:
4. its storefront (from Channels > Sites): online orders there count as the location's sales, and its storefront prices are the location's prices;
5. its shop (from Settings > Locations): orders placed or picked up there count as the location's sales.

A storefront or a shop can belong to one location only.

1. Give franchisees their logins. Invite each person under Settings > Team with the Franchisee role, then open the location and assign them under Location team.

Which sales count for a location

• An order placed or picked up at the location's shop counts for that location, whichever storefront it came from.
• Otherwise, an order on the location's storefront counts for that location.
• Each order counts for one location only.
• Only paid orders count: completed, processing, shipped and delivered, plus paid orders that were later refunded or returned (their refunds are deducted separately, see below).

How a statement is worked out

A statement covers one calendar month in the location's own time zone (its shop's time zone, or its storefront's).

• Currency. A statement is in the location's currency. Orders in any other currency are left out, and the statement says how many.
• A month with more refunds than sales shows a negative net. The percentage fees for that month are zero; nothing is carried into the next month.
• Locations opening soon or closed pay only the percentages on any sales they make. Open and temporarily closed locations also pay the flat fees and the minimum.
• Per-location terms. A location can have its own royalty or marketing percentage, set on the location. Flat fees and the minimum come from your terms.
• Tax is added on the invoice from your own tax rules for the franchisee's address.

Issuing statements

1. Under Statements, choose the month and click Compute statements. You get a draft for each location. Drafts can be recomputed as often as you like, for example after a late refund.
2. Once the month has ended at the location, click Issue. The statement is recomputed one last time, frozen, and turned into an invoice with your next invoice number.
3. Click Email invoice, or send it from Channels > Wholesale > Invoices. The email includes a pay link on your own connected Stripe account when you have one.

Issuing needs an owner or admin. A location run by your own company (no franchisee) gets statements for your records but cannot be issued. BestWebby never charges a franchisee automatically: a statement is only an invoice until the franchisee pays it. To correct an issued invoice, use a credit note from the invoice.

Location prices and local products

Open a location and use Prices. Each product shows its master price and the location's price:

• Head office can set any price. Use master returns a product to the master price.
• If your terms say Locations may adjust within a range, the location's own team can set prices within that percentage of the master price. This works when the location's storefront sells in your store's base currency; otherwise only head office sets its prices.

If your terms allow local products, Make local on a product sells it at this location only: it is shown on this location's storefront and hidden on every other location's storefront. Return to master catalogue undoes it.

The store locator

Switch the store locator on in your terms and tick List this location on the store locator on each location you want shown. The page at /locations on your storefronts lists each listed location that is not closed, with its address, phone, email, opening hours (today in bold, and whether it is open now), a map link, and a link to its own storefront. Add a link to /locations in your storefront navigation under Channels > Sites.

Only what you put on the location is shown. Franchisees, terms, teams and sales are never on the public page.

What a franchisee sees

A person with the Franchisee role signs in to Franchise, where they see only their assigned locations:

• sales this month and sales for any dates;
• their statements and whether each invoice is paid;
• the terms they are billed on;
• their location's prices, which they can change only within your range;
• their location's phone, email and opening hours, which they can edit.

They cannot see other locations, your franchisees list, your customers, products or orders elsewhere in the dashboard, or change terms, links or statements. Removing them from a location, or disabling their account, takes effect straight away.

Limits

• Statements are monthly. A location that opens mid-month pays the full flat fees for that month if it is marked Open.
• Gift cards are not treated specially. Selling a gift card at a location counts as a sale there, and an order paid with a gift card also counts in full, so gift-card value is counted when sold and again when spent. If your franchise agreement treats gift cards differently, correct the invoice with a credit note.
• Franchisee logins see the franchise screens only. If a franchisee also needs to run the till, give that person a separate Cashier login.