Changing the Legal Entity for a Venue: What's involved

Introduction

If your business changes legal entity — for example, a venue is bought by a new company, or restructured under a different entity — there are two separate things to think about:

Updating your billing and legal details with Kobas. This is required any time a venue's legal entity changes, so we can invoice and collect payment from the correct entity. Covered below.
Splitting the venue onto its own separate reporting (what we call a domain swap), so sales, reporting, and costs are kept completely separate from the old entity going forward. This part is optional — see Splitting off separate reporting below.

You can do just Step 1, or both, depending on whether you need separate reporting in Kobas Cloud for the new entity.

This article explains what's needed for each, and what to expect.

Quick checklist

Email accounts@kobas.co.uk to notify us of the legal entity change
Complete the New Legal Entity form (tick the Kobas Payments box if applicable)
Complete a new Direct Debit form for the new entity
Confirm your cutover date with your account manager
(Optional) Let us know if you also want the venue split onto its own separate reporting in Kobas Cloud

Step 1: Updating your billing and legal entity details (required)

Whenever a venue changes legal entity, we need this reflected in our billing records. To do this:

Email accounts@kobas.co.uk to let us know the venue is changing legal entity.
Complete our New Legal Entity form, which captures the new entity's details.
- If the venue uses Kobas Payments, make sure to tick this on the form — this ensures your payments setup is updated correctly for the new entity.
Complete a new Direct Debit form for the new entity, so we can continue to collect payment without interruption.

We'll also need the date of the cutover — the date the new entity starts trading — regardless of whether you're splitting off separate reporting (Step 2). Please confirm this to your account manager or accounts@kobas.co.uk along with the above.

Step 2: Splitting off separate reporting

This step is only needed if you want the new entity to have its own dedicated venue in Kobas Cloud — with its own permissions, reporting, and sales data kept fully separate from the old entity going forward. If you're happy for reporting to continue as-is, you can skip this step.

Behind the scenes, each of your venues runs on its own dedicated connection (we call this a "domain"). Splitting a venue onto a new entity's own reporting means setting it up on a new domain of its own, so its data is separated from the old entity from the cutover date onward.

When you'd need this

A venue is changing ownership or legal entity, and the new entity needs its own separate reporting, sales data, and accounting from the previous one in Kobas Cloud.
You want a clean split going forward, rather than the new entity's trading being mixed in with the old entity's historical data.

If you're opening a brand new venue rather than splitting an existing one from its entity, this process doesn't apply — speak to your account manager about venue onboarding instead.

What we'll need from you

To get started, please let your account manager or our support team know:

The venue affected, and the new legal entity it will be trading under
The cutover date and time (same date as confirmed in Step 1)
Confirmation of what time staff will be on site, and what time trading starts that day

We'll use this to plan the work around your service, and pick the lowest-disruption time for the switch.

What happens on our side

Once we have the details above, our team will:

Set up your new venue in Kobas Cloud, matching all the settings from your existing venue
Move your staff records across to the new venue
Copy over your table QR codes, so guests can keep scanning the same codes without any changes on your end
Carry out the technical switch itself, moving your EPoS system across to the new venue

Most of this happens before the day of the switch, so there's minimal disruption to your trading. The final switch itself is timed to your agreed cutover — typically scheduled around a quieter period, such as before trading starts for the day.

What you'll notice

Table QR codes — no change needed. These will continue to work as before.
Staff logins — your team will be moved across automatically; no action needed from staff.
Reporting — from the point of cutover, sales and reporting for this venue will appear under the new entity. Historical data up to the cutover point remains associated with the previous entity.
A short window around the switch — we recommend avoiding taking orders for a short period while the switch is being carried out, which we'll agree with you in advance.

After the switch

We'll confirm with you once everything is live and reporting correctly. If anything looks off in the days following the switch — for example a report showing unexpected figures, or a table QR code not working — please contact support straight away and reference this change so we can look into it quickly.

Questions?

If you're planning a change of legal entity for one of your venues, get in touch with your account manager or our support team, and we'll talk you through timing and next steps.