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Franchise & HQ (central stock)

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How a multi-site brand shares one or more central warehouses, lets sites order material from HQ, and runs brand-wide loyalty and discount campaigns from headquarters.

Apolaris AI runs a single location and a multi-branch brand on exactly the same foundation. A franchise (or any chain) is not a special account type — it is simply one organization that has many sites plus a central place to hold and distribute material, and a few people who operate the brand-wide programs. This page explains how those pieces fit together so you know where HQ-level work happens versus site-level work.

If you have not yet read Organizations & sites, start there — the franchise model builds directly on it.

A brand is one organization

Everything that makes a brand a brand lives inside one organization:

  • Every site (location) — "Downtown", "Mall", "Airport" — belongs to that one organization.
  • One or more central warehouses (HQ) hold the brand's material and exchange it with the sites.
  • Brand-wide programs — the loyalty program and discount codes — are configured once at HQ and apply across every site.

There is no is_franchise or is_hq flag on a site or a user. A location does not "become" headquarters. Instead:

  • HQ stock exists when the organization has one or more central warehouses.
  • HQ operators are simply users who hold the relevant franchise privileges (see Who runs HQ below).

An organization can run several central warehouses — for example regional hubs that each supply nearby sites. There is no single fixed "head office" warehouse; you create as many as the brand needs.

Two sides of the same workflow

Franchise material moves between HQ and sites. It helps to think of every feature as having an HQ side and a site side.

Concern HQ side (headquarters) Site side (the location)
Material catalog Curates which articles each warehouse offers, sets prices and order limits Browses what HQ has made orderable, places orders
Material movement Approves, ships, and pushes stock out to sites Requests stock and confirms what was received
Loyalty Configures the program — earn rate, tiers, reward catalog Enrols customers, awards points, redeems rewards at checkout
Discounts Creates promo / influencer codes and reads the impact report Applies a code at checkout

The material side is a true two-way workflow: a site can request stock from HQ, and HQ can also push stock out to a site. Both directions carry their own approval and fulfilment steps.

The central warehouse (HQ stock)

A central warehouse is the franchise store that holds material and exchanges it with sites. Each warehouse keeps its own stock, and it doubles as the order catalog that sites buy from.

For each article a warehouse holds, HQ controls:

Setting What it does
Orderable by sites When on, sites may order this article from this warehouse. Turn it off to keep an item HQ-internal.
Unit price The cash price a site pays HQ per unit.
Credit price / surcharge Optional price (or a default surcharge %) when a site buys on credit instead of cash.
Min / max order quantity The smallest and largest number of units a site may order at once (0 = no limit).

HQ can also set credit terms per warehouse: whether sites may buy on credit at all, the default number of days to pay, and a default credit surcharge.

Because the price a site pays is snapshotted onto the order when it is placed, later edits to a warehouse's catalog price do not retroactively change orders already in flight. Edit prices freely without disturbing open requests.

Cross-data impact

A material order is not an isolated event. When a site receives material from HQ, that stock flows into the site's own inventory and becomes available for use. Watch for these knock-on effects:

  • Inventory: received units increase the site's on-hand stock; shipped units decrease the warehouse's stock.
  • Expenses / cash: material a site buys from HQ is a real cost to the site (paid in cash, by transfer, or on credit), so it shows up in the site's spending.
  • Credit obligations: buying on credit creates an amount the site owes HQ, with reminders as the due date approaches.

Ordering material (the site side)

A site with the right privilege builds an order from the HQ catalog, choosing quantities within the limits HQ set, and submits it. HQ then approves and ships it; the site confirms receipt. HQ can also send material out to a site without the site asking first.

The full step-by-step — building an order, the approval and shipping states, warehouse transfers, and paying on credit — lives in the dedicated guide: Material ordering (franchise).

Brand-wide loyalty and discounts

Two brand programs are configured once at HQ and then apply across every site.

Loyalty. HQ configures one loyalty program per organization: how many points a customer earns per unit of spend, the redemption value of a point, enrolment and birthday bonuses, and the tier and reward catalog. Site staff then enrol customers and award or redeem points at checkout. See Loyalty program.

Discount codes. HQ creates promo or influencer discount codes and reads the campaign-impact report. Codes are applied at the point of sale by cashiers (no special discount privilege needed to apply one). See Discount codes.

A discount lowers the net value of a sale, and analytics count the net. A heavily discounted promo will pull down reported revenue for the sites that ran it — that is expected, not a reporting error. Plan campaigns with that trade-off in mind.

Who runs HQ (privileges, not roles)

There is no "franchise manager" account type. HQ work is gated by granular per-user privileges (boolean fields on each user account). A domain manager (is_manager) always passes every check; anyone else needs the specific privilege granted to them.

HQ function Privilege What it unlocks
Run the central warehouse Manage Material Requests (can_manage_material_requests) Curate the catalog, control HQ stock, and approve/ship incoming site orders (the "franchise view").
Order from HQ (site side) Order Material from HQ (can_order_material) Place and track material orders for the sites the user can see.
Configure loyalty Manage Loyalty Program (can_manage_loyalty) Set up the brand's earn rate, tiers, and reward catalog.
Use loyalty at a site Use Loyalty Program (can_use_loyalty) Enrol customers and award/redeem points.
Run discount campaigns Manage Discount Codes (can_manage_discounts) Create codes and read the impact report.

A single person can hold several of these — for example, the brand owner might hold all of them, while a regional supervisor holds only Manage Material Requests for the warehouse they run.

Site scoping still applies. A non-manager only ever sees the sites tied to their employee record plus any sites explicitly granted to them; a manager sees every site in the organization. So a site-side ordering privilege only lets a user order for the locations they can already see. See Switching sites.

To grant these privileges, see Employees, users & permissions and the Users & privileges administration guide.

Turning the modules on

The franchise material workflow is opt-in: the Material Requests module is off by default and must be enabled for the organization before the franchise/HQ tools appear. Loyalty and Discount Codes are on by default. Module availability is part of your Apolaris AI plan — see Modules for how modules are controlled, or contact support to enable one.

Modules How money flows: net sales, costs & P&L