Linked Companies

What it is

Linked Companies lets you create a second, completely separate business inside Joby and hop between it and your main business without logging out. You open it from Settings›Business›Linked Companies.

The page header reads "Create separate company accounts — each billed on your subscription or its own." The badge in the top right corner always tells you which company you are currently looking at.

The important word is separate. A linked company is not a folder, a tag or a second view of the same data. The card on the page spells it out: it creates "a separate organization with its own jobs, clients, settings, phone setup, and Joby Pay account." Nothing crosses over — a customer in one company does not appear in the other, and a job booked in one is invisible from the other.

The two billing choices

When you create a linked company you pick one of two cards under Billing. This is the one decision on the page you cannot change yourself afterwards — the note under the heading says "Choose how this company pays. You can ask Joby support to change this later."

The knock-on effect matters day to day. A company on a shared subscription has no Billing tile in its own Settings at all — its Billing page just says "Billing is managed by your primary company", and its text-messaging registration is inherited from the primary company so it never has to be done twice. A company on a separate subscription behaves like any standalone Joby account: its own Billing page, its own registration, its own everything.

When to use it

• You own a second trading name or a second legal entity and want its calls, jobs and invoices kept completely apart from the first.
• You have opened in a new city or state and want its own phone number, its own service area and its own team, without polluting your existing reports.
• You run two different trades out of one office and want two different price books, job types and booking forms.
• You want a manager who only ever sees one of the businesses, while you can see both.

Do not use it to separate work that belongs to one business. If you only want to split jobs by area, crew or trade, you get a far better result from Service Areas, Teams and Job Types — because those keep everything in one set of reports. Also do not confuse this page with Settings›Pipeline›External Lead Sources, which is about partner companies that send you leads for a commission and has nothing to do with running a second business.

Before you start

• You must be the owner or an admin. Anyone else gets the message "Only the owner or an admin can create a linked company." The tile is also hidden from Settings for logins whose role does not include Settings access — that is set under Settings›People›Team Roles.
• You must be standing in the primary company. A linked company cannot create another linked company. If you try, you get "Switch to the primary organization before creating a linked company." Use the company name at the top of the left menu to switch back first.
• Your subscription must be live. An active plan or an unexpired trial is required, otherwise you get "An active subscription is required to create a linked company."
• The feature can be switched off for your account. It is on for everyone by default. If it has been turned off you will see a Module not enabled notice at the top of the page and the form will be greyed out — contact Joby support to have it switched back on.
• Have four things ready. The Create linked company button stays greyed out until you have filled in Company name, Address, Industry and Team size. Everything else on the form is optional.
• Decide the billing choice before you click. Changing shared to separate (or back) afterwards means asking Joby support.

Step-by-step

Create a linked company

1. From the left menu open Settings, then under the Business group click Linked Companies. (On a phone go More›Settings first.)
2. Check the badge in the top right corner shows your main business. If it shows the wrong one, switch companies first — see below.
3. Under Billing, click either Shared subscription or Separate subscription. The card you pick gets a coloured outline.
4. Fill in Company name and, if it differs, Legal name.
5. Choose an Industry and a Team size (1–2, 2–5, 6–15, 16–50 or 50+). Both are required, and the industry decides which service types the new company starts with.
6. Add the Main phone and Website if you have them.
7. Start typing in Address and pick the suggestion — that fills City, State and ZIP for you and gives the new company a starting service area around that address.
8. Optionally set a Preferred area code (three digits, e.g. 305). The hint under it reads "Leave blank for a default number."
9. Set the Timezone — Eastern (ET), Central (CT), Mountain (MT), Pacific (PT), Alaska (AKT) or Hawaii (HST).
10. Click Create linked company at the bottom right of the card and wait — the button spins while Joby builds the new business.

Joby then switches you into the brand-new company automatically. If you chose Separate subscription you land on the Billing page so you can start its $49/mo subscription. If you chose Shared subscription you land on Settings›Company Settings for the new company, ready to finish filling in its details.

Switch between companies

1. Click your company name at the top of the left menu.
2. A Switch company list drops down with every company you can enter. The one you are in is marked Active. Past five companies the list adds a search box and scrolls, so type a few letters of the name instead of hunting through it.
3. Click the one you want. A Company switched message appears and the page you were on reloads with the other company's data — you stay where you were rather than being thrown back to the dashboard.

There is a second route from this page: under Your linked companies each company is listed with its yourname.joby.io address and an Open button that switches you in and drops you on that company's dashboard. Standing inside a linked company, the same card shows the primary company with its own Open button.

Give your team access

Once the pair exists, a Team access card appears at the top of the page — "Manage the team directory and choose which company each login can enter." It lists everyone from both businesses in one table, with columns for Name, Email, Role, and then one column per company, headed with the actual company names.

1. If you have more than one linked company, first pick which pair you are editing in the Linked company drop-down above the table.
2. Find the person by name or email. Their Role badge shows Admin, Office Agent or Field Worker.
3. Turn the switch on in the column of the company they should be able to enter. Joby copies their name, role and phone into that company, adds them to its Sales Team and gives them the standard permissions for their role.
4. Turn a switch off to take that company away from them. Their records in the other company are untouched.

Two switches are deliberately locked. Your own row is always greyed out and marked Owner access — you cannot remove yourself here. And nobody can be left with no company at all: if someone has access to only one of the two, that switch greys out until you turn the other one on.

Finish setting up the new company

The new business is a blank, working Joby account — but three things are deliberately not carried over and need your attention.

What you do get out of the box: a Sales Team with you in it, a Main Line and a Masking System call group, the standard lead statuses (Created, Sent, In Progress, Appointment, Estimate, Done, Canceled, Deposit, Follow Up), the usual ad sources (Google Local Services, Google Ads, Bing Ads, Yelp, Facebook, Angi, Thumbtack, Referral), service types matched to the industry you chose, a service area built around the address you entered, the default send-lead email and text templates, and a copy of your primary company's booking forms.

How to check it worked

• The company was created: Joby moves you into it by itself. The badge at the top right of the Linked Companies page, and the company name at the top of the left menu, both change to the new name.
• The link is recorded: switch back to your main business and reopen Settings›Business›Linked Companies. A Your linked companies list now shows the new company with its yourname.joby.io address, and the line above it counts them — "1 linked company on this account."
• Team access changed: an Agent access added or Agent access removed message appears and the switch stays in its new position after the table refreshes.
• Shared billing is really shared: inside the linked company, the Billing tile is gone from Settings and the Billing page reads "Billing is managed by your primary company".
• Separate billing is really separate: the linked company has its own Billing page showing its own $49/mo subscription, and it is not marked as paid until you complete the checkout you were sent to.
• The data really is separate: open Leads and Clients in the new company. Both should be empty, even though your main business is full.

Common mistakes