In each office the amount of responsibility one employee has varies greatly. Some companies have accounting departments and designated A/R and A/P clerks, while others contain a singular accountant on staff. Certain offices entirely outsource collections all together, and require someone outside of the office to login to the NetSuite environment. Each one of these situations requires different roles and permissions per employee. So how do you determine who gets what responsibilities?

Clearly document the responsibilities of each employee

Although many employees can share the same title, what they do on a more granular level can vary greatly. Document what each employee does on a day to day basis. Do they have subordinates? What security settings are already in place? Do they work in sales teams and how is commission track if applicable? Add these to the documentation.

Compare responsibilities and determine the role strategy

Once the responsibilities of each employee are well documented, compare the list across the board. Can multiple employees be assigned the same role? This is a time saver in the long run. Imagine having to update the customer permissions from edit to view on 20 roles. Now compare that to updating one role which effects 20 users.

Multiple roles vs one all encompassing role

Our accountant also doubles as a sales person. Do you combine her accounting responsibilities and sales role into one large role? The simple answer is no. The better move here is to give two distinct roles, one per position. Two examples as to why are as follows:

  1. The user can have multiple custom dashboards, one per role.
  2. If the user ever fully transitions into sales or vice versa, one of the roles can be removed without having to deconstruct the combined role.

What is the best way to customize a role?

The best way to customize a role is to take the list of responsibilities and compare them to existing NetSuite roles. Once a close comparison is found, click customize next to the desired role and resave. By doing this you will save time in not having to build the role from scratch.

Two additional tips

  1. If a user has several roles, change the color of each center so they know which roles are being used at what time. This helps with any confusion that may occur with the switching.
  2. One person just needs a few more permissions but everything else about their role is identical, what do I do? I would suggest giving that one user global permission for the additional responsibilities.


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