Dynamics GP Security: Tasks and Roles

Are you concerned about the sensitive data in your ERP solution? Companies often have many different employees that handle very different positions. We have people that work in sales, accounts payable, budgeting, financial reporting, and (our favorite people) payroll. We do not want sensitive information to be available to people that do not need that information.

With Microsoft Dynamics GP we have the security options available to us to properly define who can go where within the system. Every action in Dynamics GP can be tied to a task. Below are some examples of actions that are defined as tasks in Dynamics GP:

• Entering a Journal Entry
• Inquiring about a vendor balance
• Entering a Sales Transaction
• Reconciling a Bank Statement
• Cutting Account Payable checks
• Entering Payroll
• Reviewing Sales Accounts

As you can see any action taken in Dynamics GP is tied to a task. These tasks are then assigned to Roles. For example: entering accounts payables invoices, cutting AP checks, and printing AP Trial balances would be assigned to the AP Clerk role. Entering journal entries, printing financial reports, and creating new GL accounts would be assigned to a Book Keeper role. This makes setting up security for new users a snap, because after creating the new user we can quickly assign a role to the user that matches the position the employee plans to fill.

Another good point is that users are not restricted to only one role, so if you have that power user that wears many hats in your company you can assign as many roles as necessary (i.e. AP Clerk AND Book Keeper). Finally, the best part is that Dynamics GP comes PRELOADED with an entire list of roles. Each role already has the tasks that are associated with the role assigned to it, so out of the box you can be up and running. But it doesn’t stop there. Dynamics GP gives us the ability to further customize or modify the default roles to include the tasks we need. This allows us to make tweaks to the AP Clerk role for example if we need to include some additional tasks that are typically outside the normal realm of Accounts Payable.

As you can see with Microsoft Dynamics GP security tasks and roles we have the ability to fine tune our security so that the sensitive data can only be accessed by the people we authorize. If you have questions about the security of your current accounting software or would like us to review the current security you have set up in Dynamics GP, contact us at Intelligent Technologies, Inc. and we will be happy to assist.

by Intelligent Technologies, South Carolina Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner