Linking beneficial owners to clients

When a beneficial owner of a company is also someone your firm has onboarded as an individual client, link the two so:

• Their KYC evidence is referenced from the company's file.
• Their Companies tab shows every company they appear on.
• Future Compliance Pack exports for the company can bundle the linked person's KYC evidence (coming in a follow-up phase).

Where you do the linking

Open the company profile → People tab → Owners and people with control card. Every BO of owner_type = individual shows a small Link to client button at the bottom of its row.

How to link

1. Click Link to client on the BO row.
2. Search by name (minimum 2 characters). Results are scoped to your firm's individual clients only; you can't link to a person in another firm (RLS enforces this server-side).
3. Click the right person from the results.

The BO row now shows a green Linked: {name} chip with two controls:

• External-link icon: jump straight to the linked person's profile.
• × icon: remove the link (the BO row stays; only the link is cleared).

What "linked" means

• It writes the individual's clients.id into client_beneficial_owners.linked_client_id for the BO row.
• The BO row itself (display name, ownership %, PSC flag, etc.) is unchanged; the link is metadata on top of the existing record.
• It does not copy any KYC evidence between the two profiles; the link is a reference, not a copy.
• The owner takes the person's ID check. If their ID check has already passed, the owner shows as verified as soon as you link. If it is still in progress, the owner turns verified when it passes. You do not need to press Verify all for them, and doing so will not charge a second check.

Seeing the reverse view

Open the linked individual profile → Companies tab. At the top of the tab there's a new Beneficial-owner relationships card listing every company in your firm where this person appears as a BO, with ownership %, PSC flag, and a quick-jump link to each company profile.

When to link vs not

✅ Link when: the BO is someone you've onboarded under your firm already (e.g. a director who's also a private client of yours).

❌ Don't link when: the BO is a third party your firm has no direct relationship with. The BO row alone is sufficient; linking to a placeholder client record creates audit confusion.

What happens if the linked person is deleted

The linked_client_id FK has ON DELETE SET NULL. If the individual client is soft-deleted, the BO row's link is automatically cleared, but the BO row itself, and its display name / ownership / PSC flag, are preserved. The audit history of the link is in the firm audit log.

What's NOT in this phase

• Compliance Pack auto-bundling of linked-BO KYC PDFs: the current Compliance Pack is firm-wide (3 PDFs: MLRO Annual, PCP, FWRA + uploaded evidence). A per-company pack that embeds linked BO KYC is a separate phase.
• Companies House auto-import of officers/PSCs: that's the next KYB phase (Phase 52). Today you record BOs manually and link them as needed.
• Cross-firm BO sharing: by design, links are firm-scoped.

Related

• Companies: KYB list
• Individuals: KYC list
• Client compliance status