Group structure — parent companies + subsidiaries — Certivus Help

When a company client is part of a wider group, link it to its parent and see all its direct subsidiaries on one card.

Where you do it

Open the company profile → Overview tab → Group structure card.

The card shows three sections (Phase 59 multi-level view):

Ancestors — every parent up the chain, from the ultimate parent at the top down to the immediate parent above this company.
You are here — the current company, highlighted.
Descendants — the full subsidiary tree (depth ≤ 5), nested recursively. Each node is clickable to jump to its profile.

How to link a parent

Click Link parent company.
Search by name (minimum 2 characters). Results are scoped to your firm's company clients only — you can't link to a company in another firm.
Click the right company.

The parent's name + Companies House number appears as a chip. Click the chip to jump to the parent's profile; click the × to clear the link.

What's enforced

No self-link — a company can't be its own parent (DB constraint).
No cycles — Phase 59 adds a DB-level trigger that walks the proposed parent chain on every insert/update and refuses any change that would create a cycle (depth-capped at 50, error code PARENT_COMPANY_CYCLE). The UI also walks the chain up to 20 levels before submitting, so users get an immediate validation error instead of a DB exception.
Firm-scoped — both ends of the link must be in the same firm (RLS). The tree query (get_group_tree) is also firm-scoped — any parent or subsidiary in another firm is silently omitted.
Parent delete = link cleared — if a parent client is soft-deleted, the child's parent_company_id becomes NULL automatically. The subsidiary stays intact.

Subsidiaries appear automatically

You don't add subsidiaries from the parent's profile. Open any subsidiary, click Link parent company, and pick the parent. The new subsidiary appears on the parent's Group structure card within seconds (60s cache).

Why this is useful for KYB

Auditors expect you to know the ownership chain. Recording parent + subsidiaries on one card is the first step.
For multi-entity onboardings, the group view shows which entities share BOs, which need separate AML screening, which need separate risk assessments.
Compliance Pack exports (future phase) will optionally include the whole group's evidence.

What's NOT in this phase

Ultimate parent inference — we don't walk up to the topmost parent automatically. Record what you know directly.
Cross-firm group structure — by design. Links are firm-scoped.
Tree visualisation diagrams — the tree is rendered as an indented list. A graphical org-chart view is a possible future enhancement if firms find the indented list hard to read at depth.

Group structure — parent companies + subsidiaries