Departments allow you to group Suppliers, defining which documents (purchase orders and bills) a user can see. This allows certain documents to be presented to certain users, giving you better security and control across your purchasing and payables.
For example, a Hotel could have two Departments: the Kitchen and the Bar. You can group all the food and produce Suppliers and assign them to the Kitchen department, and all your drinks and beverage Suppliers into the Bar department.
The next step would be to add the Kitchen Staff to the Kitchen department, the Bar Staff to the Bar department and so on. Bar staff now only see bills that are in the Bar department.
š Note: Departments is an optional feature. If you do not use Departments, please be aware that every User who has Approver permissions will be able to view every bill/purchase order in your account.
If you wish to restrict which Users view (and approve) bills or purchase orders from certain Suppliers, you should use the Departments feature. Conversely, if you activate Departments, Users won't see any bills/purchase orders unless they are assigned to a Department.
Activate Departments
To activate Departments go to Settings > Company Settings. Scroll to Internal Departments and select 'Yes'.
Once activated, you will see the Departments option on the left-hand menu. Click into your Departments tab to open the space where you can manage your account's Departments.
Manage a Department
You can add, delete, and edit the names of Departments by clicking on the respective button at the top of the Departments page.
Manage Department Suppliers
When a Department is selected, the associated Suppliers are listed in the top box, left-hand side. Other Suppliers are on the right-hand side.
Move Suppliers in and out of Departments by:
Selecting the individual Supplier and clicking the arrow key in the middle to move one at a time.
Selecting multiple Suppliers with the checkboxes and clicking the arrow key in the middle to move multiple at once.
Any Suppliers that are not part of any Department will only have their bills or purchase orders viewed by Admins.
Manage Department Users
Users who are associated with a Department (and therefore have visibility of bills or purchase orders from suppliers within that Department) are listed in the bottom box, left-hand side. Other Users are on the right-hand side.
Move Users in and out of a Department by:
Selecting the individual User and clicking the arrow key in the middle to move one at a time
Selecting multiple Users and with the checkboxes and clicking the arrow key in the middle to move multiple at once
After assigning users and suppliers to a Department, ensure they log out and log back in to refresh their access. This step ensures that the supplier appears in the PO supplier dropdown for the user.
Admins and Users with Processing, Executive Approval or Review/Export Permissions are automatically associated with every Department, and cannot be disassociated.
š¤ Tip: Don't forget to Save Changes as you assign suppliers and users to departments, or the changes won't actually be saved. A red alert will advise you if any changes have been made and if you haven't yet saved.
If a non-admin user cannot see a supplier in the PO dropdown, ensure both the user and the supplier are assigned to the same Department, and have the user log out and back in to refresh their access.
Add a supplier to more than one Department
You can have more than one Department allocated to a supplier to cater for Suppliers who fall into multiple departments, e.g. both the bar and kitchen buy lemons, so users in each need to see these bills/purchase orders.
The GL code defines where the cost lands, not the Department. If a supplier shows in Multiple departments, in Panel 1 of your Lightyear screen, this will show as Multiple under the departments heading.
