Several departments need to track purchase requests using almost identical fields. Each department handles its own requests, while finance needs a combined monthly overview. In Busabase, would it be better to keep everything in one Base with a department field and separate views, or create a Base for each department? What should guide that decision before we start entering data?
I would start with one Purchase Requests Base if the departments genuinely use the same fields, status definitions, and approval rules. Add Department, requester, requested date, amount/currency, category, status, and finance reviewer. Give each department a saved view filtered to its requests, plus a finance view covering all departments. One shared record set makes monthly totals and cross-department comparisons much easier, and an agent can help you build the views and define who reviews what from a few real examples.
The decision changes if departments need different access boundaries or substantially different processes. A filtered view is a way to browse the same Base, not a security boundary that hides other records. If a requester must not be able to read another department's requests, use separate Bases or spaces with the appropriate node access, then plan how finance will aggregate them. Separate Bases also make sense if required fields and lifecycle rules diverge enough that one shared schema becomes misleading; they add work to maintain reporting and changes consistently.
Before importing everything, test two departments and a finance report with a handful of sample requests. Agree on the meaning of “approved,” currency/tax treatment, deduplication, and who can view or change each request. You can tell your agent: “Build a small shared purchase-request Base with department views and a finance overview; show me the permission implications before importing real data.” Is the main difference between departments their visibility, or just the way each team likes to view the same process?
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