Buyer Use Cases

Events as Buyers

Events such as music festivals typically create operating companies to handle the booking for talent for their event. Common forms include either a single company to represent all instances of the event, or multiple companies for each instance of the event.

Within Auth Data, the same rules apply as with other buyers: every legally registered business is logged as a distinct buyer. So, if a festival has occurred for 5 years and a new operating company is created for each year, then each of the 5 companies is a distinct buyer. These five would also roll up to a parent buyer that represents the owner of the event series.

Governments, Governmental Organizations and Sovereign Nations

Not all Buyers are legally registered businesses. Governments, governmental organizations and other sovereign states and nations do not appear within business databases. Below are some example use cases:

Governments (Federal, State/Province and Municipal)

Governments of any level are logged in Auth Data as distinct Buyers in Auth Data. This includes listing Buyers at the city level (“City of Beaver Damn”), state level (“State of Wisconsin”) and federal levels (“United States Government”). Note the naming convention in the examples for each level of government.

Hierarchical structures of government are not maintained within Auth Data unless specifically requested by frontline teams. It is not necessary to reproduce parent-child relationships between each of these levels of government.

Governmental Organizations

Departments within a level of government are logged as distinct buyers. To reduce ambiguity, these departments are linked to a parent buyer that represents which level of government they roll into.

For example, the Department of Education in the United States would list the Buyer as “Department of Education” with the parent being “United States Government”.

Sovereign Nations

While every country in the world is technically a sovereign nation, in the context of UTA, a sovereign nation typically refers to a native American tribe, which functions independent of any state government. These sovereign nations typically create operating companies to handle different lines of business which are then wholly owned by the members of the tribe.

For example, the Seminole Tribe of Florida is the owner of Hard Rock International Inc, which is the operating company for the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. In this case, the DMO will create a Buyer in Auth Data for the operating company (Hard Rock International Inc) which would belong to the parent buyer representing the tribe (Seminole Tribe of Florida).

In the case that no operating company exists, the Buyer will simply be the name of the sovereign nation.

Non-profit, Educational and Charitable Organizations

Non-profit organizations, educational institutions (schools, universities, and related entities such as student unions), and charitable organizations do not typically appear in business registry databases. Many legal jurisdictions place these types or organizations under separate registries specifically for their non-profit status. Examples include the UK’s Registry of Charities or the IRS 501(c)(3) Tax Exempt registry in the US.

Validated charitable organizations are listed as distinct Buyers within Auth Data. Unless specifically requested, the DMO will not link charitable organizations to a larger parent (such as assigning the “University of Sheffield” as the parent of “University of Sheffield Students Union”.

Buyer Out of Business

Buyers that have ceased operations are marked by the DMO as inactive. This status is validated by the DMO in the same process as searching for the Buyer within business registries. Typically, defunct Buyers will have their business listing marked as “dissolved”, “in administration”, “cancelled”, “terminated” or similar phrasing.

Acquisitions

It is not uncommon for one Buyer organization to acquire another Buyer. The approach taken by the DMO in updating the status of each of these parties depends on the outcome of the acquisition.

When a Buyer wholly acquires and absorbs another into its operations, the acquired company will appear as out of business in its original business registration listing. The DMO will mark the acquired company as a child of the acquiring company, mark the acquired company as inactive, and add the acquired company’s name as an alias of the parent.

If the acquired company remains legally independent, the acquired company’s original business registration listing will remain as active. The DMO will add the acquired company as a child of the acquiring company. The acquired company will remain an active Buyer within Auth Data.