Roles, Users & Audit

What it does

Built around how the work actually happens

Role builder with per-module, per-action permissions
Server-side enforcement on every endpoint
Branch and warehouse scoping for multi-plant groups
Created-by, posted-by and approved-by stamped on every document
Cancellation reverses stock and ledger instead of deleting history

What the whiteboard and the shared spreadsheet used to do

The morning meeting starts at 7:30. The production manager hands out a printed A4 sheet that lists every user ID and the screens they can see. It is updated once a month, or whenever someone leaves. The sheet is pinned above the terminal in Stores, above the one in Finishing, and above the one in Accounts. When a new girl joins the packing line, her supervisor writes her name on the sheet, ticks the boxes for “Packing List” and “Daily Output”, and hands her a password that is the same as the last three girls.

At the end of the shift the packing supervisor tallies the bundles on a ruled page in a hard-bound register. She signs the page, the finishing manager countersigns, and the register is locked in a steel cabinet. The next morning the accounts clerk copies the figures into a shared Excel workbook that lives on the office PC. The workbook has one tab per department, and every tab has a column for “Created by” and “Checked by”. The clerk prints the tab, staples the packing list to it, and files it in a lever-arch folder labelled “Packing – Q2”.

When the sales director rings from the head office and asks why invoice 1245 was cancelled, the clerk opens the folder, finds the packing list, and reads the hand-written note in the margin: “Customer changed order – see email 12/05”. There is no link to the email, no record of who wrote the note, and no way to know whether the stock was returned to the shelf or written off.

How a document moves through the system

A packing list is raised by the packing supervisor on the shop floor. She selects the production order, enters the bundle count, and saves. The system stamps the document with her user ID, the branch, the warehouse, and the timestamp. The status is “Draft”.

The finishing manager opens the list on his tablet, verifies the count against the physical bundles, and clicks “Approve”. The status changes to “Approved”, the “Approved by” field is populated, and the stock ledger is updated: finished goods increase by the bundle quantity, work-in-progress decreases by the same amount. No journal entry is posted yet.

The accounts clerk posts the packing list from her desk. Posting generates two journal lines: a debit to Finished Goods and a credit to Work-in-Progress. The “Posted by” field is filled, the status becomes “Posted”, and the document can no longer be edited. If the clerk cancels the document instead, the system reverses the stock movements and the journal lines, leaving the original document intact with a “Cancelled” stamp and a reason field that must be completed.

The reports and the decisions they support

Report	What it shows	Decision it supports
Roles	Every role, the modules it can access, and the specific actions (view, create, edit, delete, approve, post, cancel) allowed.	Assigning the minimum rights needed for each job title, and removing rights when someone changes department.
Users	All active users, their roles, the branches and warehouses they can see, and the last time they logged in.	Disabling accounts when someone leaves, and spotting unused accounts that can be archived.
Permission matrix	A grid of roles against modules, with ticks for allowed actions. Exported to Excel for the internal audit team.	Proving to the auditor that sales staff cannot post journals and that warehouse staff cannot raise invoices.
Document audit trail	Every change to a document: who created it, who edited it, who approved it, who posted it, who cancelled it, and the reason for cancellation. Includes the exact timestamp and the IP address of the device.	Tracing why a packing list was cancelled, whether the stock was returned, and who authorised the write-off.

What usually goes wrong without it

The packing list is raised by the supervisor, printed, and handed to the finishing manager. He signs the paper, but the stock movement is never entered into the system. The finished-goods ledger shows less stock than is actually on the shelf, so the sales team promises delivery dates that cannot be met. When the customer complains, the sales director blames the warehouse, the warehouse blames production, and the production manager blames the IT system for “losing” the packing list.

The accounts clerk posts the packing list, but the journal entry is posted to the wrong cost centre. The monthly management accounts show a profit in Finishing and a loss in Weaving, so the board approves a capital expenditure for a new loom that is not needed. The error is discovered three months later, after the purchase order is raised.

A sales officer cancels an invoice and re-issues it with a different price. The original invoice is deleted from the system, so there is no record of the discount given. The customer pays the lower amount, and the sales officer pockets the difference. The fraud is only discovered when the customer’s purchase ledger is reconciled, by which time the sales officer has left the company.

The IT administrator gives himself the “Super User” role so he can fix a problem in the middle of the night. He forgets to remove the role the next morning. Three months later he is dismissed for unrelated reasons, but his account remains active with full rights. He logs in from home, cancels every packing list for the last month, and leaves no reason. The stock ledger is now incorrect, the monthly accounts are wrong, and the auditor refuses to sign off the year-end accounts until the mess is untangled.

Worked illustration: stock accuracy

On 15 May the warehouse shelf shows 120 bundles of towel code T-400. The system shows 100. The audit trail report is run for T-400 between 1 April and 15 May. It lists 12 packing lists: 10 posted, 2 cancelled. The two cancelled lists account for 20 bundles. The stock ledger is corrected by re-posting the cancelled lists, and the shelf now matches the system.

Questions about Roles, Users & Audit

Can I give a user rights to only one warehouse?

Yes. When you create the user, you select the branches and warehouses they can access. The API enforces this scoping on every request, so the user cannot see or edit documents from other warehouses.

What happens if two people edit the same document at the same time?

The system locks the document when the first user opens it. The second user sees a message that the document is locked and can only view it in read-only mode until the first user saves or cancels.

Can I export the audit trail to Excel?

Yes. The document audit trail report can be exported as a CSV file, which opens in Excel. The file includes every change, the user, the timestamp, and the reason for cancellation.

Is there a way to see who approved a document after it has been posted?

Yes. The audit trail report shows the full history of every document, including who approved it, who posted it, and the exact time each action was taken.