How Finance Operations Should Think About Trays, Workspaces, Entities, Departments, and Permissions

1. Map entities: represent each legal company on the books. 2. Map departments: represent the units that own and approve spend. 3. Set up trays: organize work queues that route invoices for action. 4. Define workspaces: group how teams operate across the work. 5. Set permissions: control who can see and act on what. 6. Align to the ERP: keep entities and dimensions consistent with the ERP. 7. Review as you grow: revisit the structure as the organization changes.

Entities and departments are how the system reflects the structure of the business. An entity is a legal company, so it determines which set of books an invoice posts to and which entity-specific rules apply. In a multi-entity organization, entities keep each company's transactions separate and correct.

Departments are the organizational units that own spend. They drive coding, such as which cost center bears an expense, and they often drive approval ownership. Together, entities and departments answer which company and which unit a given invoice belongs to, which is the foundation for correct coding and routing.

Trays are about the work itself. A tray is a queue that organizes invoices and routes them to where they need to go, so invoices land in a defined place for the right person to act rather than in a general pile. Trays are how the flow of work is structured day to day.

Workspaces group how teams operate. They provide the context a team works within, organizing collaboration and the set of work a group handles. Where entities and departments describe the organization, trays and workspaces describe how work moves and how teams engage with it.

Permissions control who can see and do what across entities, departments, trays, and workspaces. They are what ensure a person in one entity or department sees only the invoices they should, and that coding, approval, and payment rights follow the roles a person holds.

Permissions are where structure becomes control. The other elements organize the work, but permissions enforce that the organization stays inside the access boundaries it intends, which is essential for both security and segregation of duties. Setting permissions to mirror real roles keeps access aligned with responsibility.

Stampli routes invoices with Trays, supports multiple entities, and uses role-based permissions, so finance operations can mirror how the business is organized. Invoices land in the right place, code to the right entity and department, and stay visible to the right people.

Because Stampli keeps the ERP as the system of record and mirrors its chart of accounts, entities, and dimensions, the entity and department structure in the workflow stays consistent with the ledger. Stampli supports both centralized and decentralized work, so the structure can reflect a shared services model or distributed teams.

Segregation of duties between invoice and payment approval is enforced by design, and every action is captured in an immutable audit trail. The structural elements and permissions together let a finance operation route work and control access in a way that matches its real organization.