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Organization defaults and shop overrides

Most shop settings groups can either follow a shared organization default or hold the shop's own values. Every inheritable configuration section shows a badge naming where its values come from, and your organization decides per group whether shops are allowed to differ at all. If your organization has one shop, you can ignore all of this: the defaults resolve to your shop and behave like plain shop settings.

For a multi-shop organization, this is how you set a policy once and keep it consistent. Edit the organization's values and every inheriting shop picks up the change immediately. Override at one shop and that shop keeps its own copy from then on.

Which settings groups can inherit​

Twelve groups participate in inheritance. By their names in the settings pages: Labor rates, Fees, Discounts, Service categories, Payment methods, Business hours, Appointment settings, Approval requirements, Service section headings, Customer portal, Workflow stages, and Roles. A new shop starts with every one of them on the organization default, which is why the onboarding pass has working values to edit instead of blank pages.

Roles is the exception worth knowing about. Because role permissions decide who can do what, your organization keeps them locked by default: every shop reads the organization's roles and shop administrators cannot change them. If you want a location to manage its own roles, switch Roles to Org default in the organization settings control table first. Roles has no Shop controls option — the organization always owns the definitions a shop starts from, so a new shop can never open with an empty permission set.

Estimate and invoice detail settings (which line-level details customers see on documents) inherit the same way but through their own Customize and Reset buttons on the Estimates & invoices tab. See Payment methods and customer document settings.

What the badges mean​

  • Org default: the shop is reading the organization's values live. When someone edits them in organization Configuration, this shop sees the change.
  • Shop override: the shop owns its own copy. Organization edits no longer reach it.
  • Shop owned: the group never inherits. Tax and the shop's identity section always carry this badge.
  • Managed by organization (with a lock icon): the organization has locked the group, and the shop's section is read-only.

Override a group for one shop​

Just edit it. Changing anything in an inherited group converts that group to a shop override: the shop first receives a copy of the organization's current values, then your edit applies on top. So overriding the labor rates group to add one fleet rate keeps the org's Standard and Diagnostic rates as your starting point rather than leaving you with an empty table.

The override is per group, not per row. Once labor rates are overridden, none of the organization's labor rate edits reach that shop, including new rates added later.

Return a shop to the organization default​

Sections that support it have a reset button: Reset to organization settings for business hours and appointment settings, Reset to organization default for service section headings, Customer portal, and workflow stages, and plain Reset for document detail settings on the Estimates & invoices tab. Resetting discards the shop's customized values and resumes following the organization live. The discarded values are not kept anywhere, so a later re-override starts from a fresh copy of the org values, not from what the shop had before.

Workflow stages get one extra step on reset: the shop's board is re-synced to the organization's template board, stages are matched by name, and any active repair orders sitting on a removed stage are moved onto the surviving stages. See Workflow stages and operational defaults.

The financial groups (labor rates, fees, discounts, payment methods, service categories) and approval requirements have no reset control in the app yet. Once overridden, they stay shop-owned; contact the BayEngine team if you need one returned to the organization default.

Decide who controls each group​

Org view > Configurations > General > Business info has an Organization settings control table with one row per inheritable group and three modes:

  • Org controls: every shop uses the organization's values and cannot edit its own. Shop sections show the Managed by organization badge.
  • Org default: the starting mode. Shops begin with organization values and each shop may override.
  • Shop controls: the organization's values are ignored and each shop manages the group alone. Organization configuration shows a shop-controlled notice instead of an organization value editor while this mode is set.

Set Org controls on the groups where drift costs you money or compliance, fees and discounts being the usual candidates. Leave location-sensitive groups like business hours on Org default.

What is always per shop​

Some settings never inherit, because two locations genuinely differ on them. The shop's identity (public and internal names, legal name, license number, contact details, address) and its timezone and locale are covered in Shop identity, contact information, hours, and closures. Tax configs are confirmed per shop, since rates follow the jurisdiction the shop sits in. Document counters (each shop numbers its own estimates, repair orders, and purchase orders), inventory locations, and inventory stock are also shop-scoped. General and Tire Part Markup each follow an Organization default unless the Shop replaces that Part Kind's complete policy with an override. Details on the pricing pieces are in Labor rates, part markup, fees, discounts, and taxes.

The Customer-Facing Brand also follows Organization defaults, but Logo and primary color override independently rather than as one settings group. Manage both under General > Branding.

What is shared across shops without any setting​

A few things belong to the organization outright. Canned Services are one catalog for all shops; a shop can hide the ones it doesn't offer or customize one into its own copy, and organization edits reach every shop that hasn't customized that template. Inspection Templates can be created at the organization level for all shops or at one shop. Customer Document Terms are one organization-owned text with no shop override, so every shop presents the same terms. Legal SMS Senders are managed at the organization. And customers and vehicles belong to the organization while recording which shop they originated at, which is what makes cross-shop history possible.

What Org view contains today​

Org view, reached from the shop switcher as described in Navigation, search, and basic concepts, opens the organization's settings and reports. Viewing it requires shop settings read permission scoped to the organization.

Organization configuration uses the same five sidebar pages as shop configuration: General, Customer Experience, Operations, Parts, and Financial. Their tabs include Locations, Hours and calendar, Service categories, Customer documents, Workflow, Customer portal, Communications, Canned services, and Inspection templates. General > Locations lists every shop with its address and is where you add a new shop; a new shop starts on the organization defaults for every inheritable group.

The organization Reports page exists but is empty today. Cross-shop reporting is not built yet.

Keep permissions org-wide for staff who work across shops​

A User Permission granted at the organization scope covers every shop in the organization, including shops added later, so a floating manager needs one grant instead of one per shop. Org-wide read permission on customers and vehicles is also what lets Search return records that originated at your other shops. How to grant either is covered in Assign Shop Roles, shop access, and User Permissions.