You can use departments to group suppliers and decide which documents, such as purchase orders and bills, each user can see. This gives you better security and control across your purchasing and payables. Activate departments, then assign your suppliers and users to them.
đNote: Departments is an optional feature. If you don't use departments, every user who has Approver permissions can view every bill and purchase order in your account.
Understand how departments work
Departments restrict which bills and purchase orders a user can see, based on the suppliers in each department. For example, a hotel could have two departments: Kitchen and Bar. You group all the food and produce suppliers in the Kitchen department, and all the drinks and beverage suppliers in the Bar department. You then add the kitchen staff to the Kitchen department and the bar staff to the Bar department. The bar staff now only see bills that are in the Bar department.
When you use departments, remember the following:
If you want to restrict which users view and approve bills or purchase orders from certain suppliers, use departments.
If you activate departments, users don't see any bills or purchase orders unless you assign them to a department.
Suppliers that aren't in any department only have their bills and purchase orders viewed by admins.
Admins, and users with Processing, Executive Approval or Review and Export permissions, are automatically associated with every department and you can't remove them. These roles involve tasks across multiple departments, so their access can't be restricted to specific departments.
Activate departments
You need to activate departments before you can manage them. Once activated, the Departments option appears in the left-hand menu.
Click Settings, then click Company Settings.
Scroll to Internal Departments, then select Yes.
â ď¸Important: Once you activate departments, users don't see any bills or purchase orders until you assign them to a department.
Add, rename or delete a department
You manage your departments from the Departments page.
Click Departments in the left-hand menu.
Use the buttons at the top of the Departments page to add a department, rename a department or delete a department.
Add suppliers to a department
You can add suppliers to a department, or remove them, to decide which bills and purchase orders the users in that department see.
Click Departments in the left-hand menu.
Select the department. The suppliers in the department are listed in the top box on the left-hand side. All other suppliers are listed on the right-hand side.
Move suppliers in and out of the department by doing one of the following:
Select an individual supplier, then click the arrow in the middle to move one supplier at a time.
Select multiple suppliers using the checkboxes, then click the arrow in the middle to move multiple suppliers at once.
Click Save Changes.
đ¤Tip: If you don't save, your changes aren't kept. A red alert tells you when you've made changes that you haven't saved yet.
Add a supplier to more than one department
You can add the same supplier to more than one department. This is useful when a supplier falls into multiple departments. For example, both the bar and the kitchen buy lemons, so users in each department need to see these bills and purchase orders.
The GL code defines where the cost lands, not the department. If a supplier is in more than one department, Panel 1 of your Lightyear screen shows Multiple under the Departments heading.
Add users to a department
You can add users to a department, or remove them, so they can see the bills and purchase orders from the suppliers in that department.
Click Departments in the left-hand menu.
Select the department. The users in the department are listed in the bottom box on the left-hand side. All other users are listed on the right-hand side.
Move users in and out of the department by doing one of the following:
Select an individual user, then click the arrow in the middle to move one user at a time.
Select multiple users using the checkboxes, then click the arrow in the middle to move multiple users at once.
Click Save Changes.
đNote: After you assign users and suppliers to a department, ask the users to log out and log back in to refresh their access. This makes sure the supplier appears in the purchase order supplier dropdown for the user.
Troubleshooting
If a user can't see a supplier, or you can't move a user out of a department, use the sections below to find the cause.
'Not Moved Due to Role Permissions' error
You see this error when you try to remove a user from a department while they have permissions that automatically associate them with every department. Admin, Processing, Executive Approval, and Review and Export permissions are the most common causes.
To move the user out of a department:
Check the permissions assigned to the user, focusing on elevated roles such as Processing, Review and Export, or Admin. For more information, see Manage users and permissions in Lightyear.
Adjust the user's permissions by doing one of the following:
If the user doesn't need access to all departments, change their permissions to Approval Only. This role doesn't require access to all departments, so you can move the user as needed.
Remove elevated permissions, such as Processing, Executive Approval, or Review and Export.
Remove the user from the relevant departments. You shouldn't see the error now that the permissions are adjusted.
Supplier missing from the purchase order dropdown
If a non-admin user can't see a supplier in the purchase order dropdown, check their access:
Check that both the user and the supplier are assigned to the same department.
Ask the user to log out, then log back in to refresh their access.