Allocating Seats to Sub-Accounts
Allocation is how you hand seat inventory down to the sub-accounts beneath you, so they can run their own users independently. It’s the mechanism that powers the Siperb tree — departments that manage their own staff, resellers that manage their own clients, or any organisation where separate branches need their own seat supply.
How allocation works
When you allocate seats to a sub-account, those seats move from your Available count into that sub-account’s inventory as Available — ready for them to assign to their own users. You remain the owner throughout. Allocation moves where a seat is held; it never changes who owns and pays for it.
- You buy seats — they are Owned by you.
- You allocate some to a sub-account — those seats appear in the sub-account’s inventory as Available.
- The sub-account assigns seats to their users, or allocates them further down their own tree.
- At all times, you can see which seats are allocated, to whom, and whether they’re in use.
A worked example
You own 10 Domain User seats. You manage three departments, each run by a branch head. You allocate 3 seats to Department A, 3 to Department B, and 2 to Department C — keeping 2 in reserve for yourself.
Your inventory now shows: Owned: 10 / Allocated: 8 / Available: 2. Each department head sees their allocated seats as Available in their own inventory and can assign them to their team members without needing to come back to you. Department A’s branch head decides to allocate 1 of their 3 seats down to a sub-account of their own — this is onward allocation, and it works the same way.
Onward allocation
A sub-account that has received an allocation can onward-allocate those seats further down their own tree. This is what makes deep organisational structures work — a regional manager allocates seats to their site managers, who allocate to their teams, and so on. Ownership never changes hands; only the holding location does.
Key rules
- You can allocate to any account in your tree that you’re responsible for.
- A sub-account can assign and onward-allocate your seats, but can never take ownership of them.
- You can only pull back seats that are not currently in use. A seat assigned to a live user cannot be reclaimed until that user is removed or their seat is freed.
- More than one owner can allocate seats to the same sub-account. Each owner’s allocation is tracked separately — you always see your own slice clearly, and pulling back your allocation doesn’t affect anyone else’s.
Reducing an allocation
To reduce an allocation, lower the number and confirm. The freed seats return to your Available count immediately. If the sub-account is currently using more seats than your new allocation number, the Control Panel will block the reduction and ask you to free those users first — it will never pull a seat from under a live user.
Tip: Before reducing an allocation for a sub-account that has onward-allocated further down their tree, check that the downstream seats are also free — the same rule applies at every level.