Multi-Entity introduces a two-level Organization-to-Business Unit hierarchy inside a single Arcoro account, so an organization with multiple related legal entities manages all of them under one login, with each Business Unit still processing payroll under its own FEIN. This eliminates the previous need for multiple Arcoro accounts

Using Multi-Entity

After the configuration of Multi-Entity, there are minimal UI changes. The primary UI change that you will recognize is the option to navigate between your organization and business units in Payroll. There are items that you should be aware of, such as how shared data moves between your organization and business units and data syncing, as documented below.

Navigation

The menu bar towards the top-right will allow you to switch between your Organization and Business Units. The Organization Business Unit is always pinned to the top of the list to indicate its place in the hierarchy. This dropdown menu is only active when you have two or more entities. 

How Does Multi-Entity Work?

When your accounts are created by Arcoro, the primary Organization is created with the master set of pay schedules, rate codes, and locations. Business Units are created under the organization and will adopt the cost codes, departments, labor classes, rate codes, pay schedules, and locations from the organization. Any changes made at the organization level will propagate down to the business unit. Rate codes, pay schedules, and locations are shared down from the organization and are read-only at the Business Unit level.

Organization & Business Units Differences

The "Business Unit" menu under Setup is only available at the Organization level. 

Jobs are the one setup list that is per Business Unit. The organization view shows every job, while business units will only show jobs assigned to it. This same job-level scoping is reused for both wage determination and general ledger processing.

Company Settings gains a new "Multi FEIN" settings group with two settings: General Ledger and Wage Determination. Each option is configurable per Business Unit as either "Use Organization Level" (inherit the Organization's configuration, the default) or "Use Business Unit" (configure independently). Switching a Business Unit from "Use Business Unit" back to "Use Top" permanently deletes that Business Unit's own GL or Wage Determination mappings after a confirmation prompt; there is no way to restore them afterward, so this choice should be made deliberately during setup.

Multi-Entity Permission

• Application Administrator and Application Read-Only roles see every entity of the Organization automatically.
• The four single user roles (Payroll Administrator, Controller, Manager, Employee) only see the specific entities they have been explicitly granted access to. Only Application Administrator can grant access to other roles. Payroll enforces this Business Unit-level security within its own product, on top of the shared Arcoro Company ID described above; this is also what a reassignment (below) checks against, since the admin performing a reassignment must have access to both the source and destination Business Unit.

Employees and Contractors Assignment/Reassignment

• Employees should belong to exactly one Business Unit at a time. Business Unit is an employment-level field managed by Hub/Core HR (the same as job code or location), not by Payroll.
  • Payroll consumes the assignment through sync. Core HR does allow more than one Business Unit. (This is called "Employer" in Core.) Because the active entity context already implies the Business Unit, the Payroll People/Demographics screen removes the Business Unit field entirely rather than showing it read-only.
• Moving a person between Business Units is treated as a new legal employer event, not a simple record edit. Year-to-date federal and state tax accumulations reset under the new FEIN, and a separate W-2 (or 1099-NEC for contractors) is issued per FEIN worked during the year. Direct deposit, W-4, and state withholding elections are re-established in the new entity.
• A reassignment requires an administrator who has access to both the source and destination Business Unit.

Payroll Processing, Reporting, and Pay Stubs

• Import files, the Payroll Importers, the Payroll Processing UI, and both general and payroll-processing reports are all automatically scoped to the Business Unit.
• The Pay Stub Controller aggregates a person's pay stubs across every Check payroll company they have ever been assigned to over their tenure, not just their current entity, since someone may have pay stub history in more than one Business Unit after a reassignment.

Integrations and Sync Changes

• Shared, Organization-level master lists (cost codes, departments, labor classifications, unions) sync at the shared Organization level regardless of which Business Unit a connector is scoped to; the sync's audit trail records which Business Unit triggered the sync.
• Per-entity data (time records, expenses, time-off balances, employee/contractor records) syncs scoped to whichever specific Check payroll company the connector is configured for.
• General ledger and wage determination sync automatically follow the same Organization/Business Unit resolution used by the UI and processing engine, based on each Business Unit's "Use Top" or "Use Business Unit" setting; no separate sync-side configuration is needed.
• The Core HR reader is extended to read the Employer field and map it directly to Business Unit, replacing the previous Spectrum-specific mapping that relied on the Facility 1 field or a UDFL flag. Spectrum's existing "Entities" (used for benefits sync) are unaffected and continue to sync separately from Business Unit. The Spectrum "Company Codes" setting is replaced by a "Business Units" multi-select (matched by each employer's External Employer Code); users re-select their Business Unit(s) once this ships, since prior Company Codes values do not carry forward automatically.
  • Because Core HR allows an employee to be assigned to more than one Employer while the Arcoro Employee Model supports only a single Business Unit per person, the sync enforces a single-Employer rule at the point of sync: if an employee has more than one active Employer assigned in Core HR, that employee's sync errors with the message "The employee is assigned to more than one Business Unit (employer) in Core HR. Only a single Business Unit is supported. Assign a single Business Unit to this employee in Core HR and run the sync again." Roughly 200 existing companies currently have at least one employee assigned to multiple Employers in Core HR; those specific employees will need a Core HR cleanup (a single Employer assigned) before they sync successfully once this ships.
• Time records sync from Arcoro Time to Payroll are already separated by Business Unit and Employee, so once a user's Business Units are set up, incoming time data routes to the correct entity automatically.
• The Payroll connector's configuration field currently named CompanyId is renamed to OrganizationId to remove ambiguity now that multiple entities can exist under one user, with a data migration for existing production connectors.

Multi-Entity Across Other Arcoro Offerings

• Hub (core platform): Hub owns the canonical Business Unit record for a user (identifier, name, active status), including automatically representing every Organization with its own Business Unit. Hub's Business Unit page is where additional Business Units are provisioned. Business Unit is also shown and editable on the Employee profile and the Job profile in Hub. There is also a Business Unit list screen that is user-facing that will not allow Business Units to be provisioned.
• Core HR: Core HR's Employer field is the source for a person's Business Unit assignment, read directly by the sync layer as described above.
• Arcoro Time (formerly ExakTime): Supports Multi-Entity through Business Units today, using the same single-instance model as Core HR: all of a user's company data lives in one Arcoro Time account, and Business Units synced in from Sage Intacct scope that data by entity. There is no dedicated Business Unit management screen in the Arcoro Time user interface; Business Units are populated from the Intacct sync rather than created or edited directly inside Time. Time records sync from Arcoro Time to Payroll already separated by both Business Unit and Employee. As in Payroll, an employee cannot be assigned to more than one Business Unit at the same time in Arcoro Time.
• Onboarding: Administrators configure a distinct new-hire experience (welcome message, required documents, videos, Business Unit-specific information) per Business Unit, with a defined fallback: a person's Business Unit experience, then the company's default experience, then a system-generated default. Business Units in Onboarding are created during implementation through an internal system administration tool; users do not create them themselves, and they do not change often.
• ATS, Talent, LMS, and Performance: A Business Units tab in the unified Employee Management experience shows which Business Units a person administers, carried over from the legacy Talent product.