Distributors, subsidiaries, and team members in SOLO Server — which do I need?

Quick answer

These are four different things in SOLO Server, and picking the right one matters:

Team member (User): an additional login within your existing account, with permissions you control. Use this when more staff need to manage your customers and licenses.
Subsidiary (child author account): a separate author account with its own customers, licenses, and logins, linked to your master catalog. Use this when a distinct entity (subsidiary or distributor) should manage its own customers with their data kept separate from others.
Distributor / reseller (and affiliate): a reseller or referrer record, not a login into your admin interface. Use this to track resellers, their pricing, and commissions.
Affiliate: in SOLO Server, "distributor" and "affiliate" are interchangeable terms for the same kind of record.

Team members (Users) — more logins in one account

If you just need more people to help manage your account, add them as Users, not as separate accounts. Each staff member gets their own User ID and password, with permissions assigned directly or through Groups (SOLO Server ships with Administrators, Power Users, and Customer Service Rep groups). The first User on an account can add and manage other users and groups. A dedicated Integration User can also be created for web-service/API use only, which cannot log into the author interface.

This keeps everyone in the same account, seeing the same customers and licenses, with permissions scoping what each person can do. See the SOLO Server manual topic Managing Users and E-Mail Notifications.

Subsidiaries (Multi-Tenant Catalog Mode) — separate accounts sharing a master catalog

If you have subsidiaries or distributors that should each manage their own customers and licenses, with each one's data kept separate from the others, that is a subsidiary (child) author account, using Multi-Tenant Catalog Mode. In this mode:

A master (parent) author account holds the master product catalog.
Each child author account has its own customers, licenses, and logins, and inherits a selective copy of the master catalog that can be re-synchronized when the parent catalog changes.
Because child accounts validate against the parent's product data and use the parent's encryption key and download directory, you can maintain a single software build that works across all child accounts.

Multi-Tenant Catalog Mode is a paid add-on available on SOLO Server Dedicated URL and Self-Hosted instances, and it is enabled by SoftwareKey (not self-serve). If this fits your structure, contact us to enable it. See the manual topic Multi-Tenant Catalog Mode.

Distributors and affiliates — resellers and referrers

A distributor (reseller) or affiliate (referrer) is tracked with a Distributor record under Configure / Distributors, not as a login to your admin interface. You can set the Pct Cost (the percentage of retail the distributor pays you), apply a cart discount, and run the Licenses by Distributor report to see a distributor's licenses and commission totals over a date range. Distributors can optionally be given a distributor-mode cart login (which must be linked to a customer record). See the manual topics What are Affiliates and Distributors? and Licenses by Distributor report.

Which one do I need?

More staff to help manage your account → add a User (with a Group/permissions).
A separate entity (subsidiary/distributor) that should manage its own segregated customers and licenses → a subsidiary (child) author account via Multi-Tenant Catalog Mode.
A reseller or referral partner whose sales and commissions you want to track → a Distributor / Affiliate record.

Common Questions

I want to add someone to help manage licenses. Do I create a new account for them?

No. Add them as a User in your existing account and assign permissions (directly or via a Group). Creating a separate account is only for a subsidiary/distributor entity that needs its own segregated customers and licenses.

What is the difference between a subsidiary account and a distributor?

A subsidiary (child author) account is a full, separate author account (its own customers, licenses, and logins) sharing your master catalog. A distributor is a reseller/referrer record used for pricing and commission tracking, not a separate account. They solve different problems.

What happens if the master (parent) account lapses or is cancelled?

The interaction between a master account's status and its child accounts is not something to assume. Please contact us before making changes that could affect a master account in a multi-tenant setup, so we can advise based on your specific configuration.

Is Multi-Tenant Catalog Mode included in my plan?

It is a paid add-on available on SOLO Server Dedicated URL and Self-Hosted, enabled by SoftwareKey. Contact us to discuss enabling it. See SOLO Server Automation Packages.