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The ERP Setup Console

ERP Setup is the console for setting up a company group in the order it is actually done: the companies, who can use them, which roles people hold, how documents are numbered, and whether the ERP is wired to your data. Its checklist says what is still missing and takes you to where it is fixed.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • ERP Setup — the setup console, for architects

Admin Panel → ERP - Setup:

  • ERP Setup — the same console for holders of the ERP: Administration role
  • Record Numbering — how invoices, orders, journals and other ERP records are numbered, per company
  • Approval Matrices — who approves requisitions, orders and supplier invoices, at what value
  • ERP Documents — document types, their lifecycle and every document of a type
  • EDI — trading partners, maps, transports and messages
  • PunchOut — punch-out suppliers and the baskets that came back

The summary and the six tabs

Four cards head the screen: Checklist done, Companies, Groups with ERP roles and Bindings valid. Below them are six tabs.

  • Checklist: every prerequisite, marked Done, Needs attention, Missing or Not applicable, each with an Open button.
  • Companies: the legal entities, with pickers for currency, country, parent, book, calendar and financial year end.
  • Company access: security groups against companies, each cell None, Read, Write or Post.
  • ERP roles: security groups against the ERP roles and document permissions.
  • Number schemes: every scheme the ERP needs against every company, showing whether the company has its Own sequence or a Shared one, with an example of the next number.
  • Bindings: every binding and whether it is valid.

Working down the checklist

  1. Companies (legal entities): at least one company exists.
  2. Company access for security groups: every company has at least one group with access.
  3. ERP roles assigned to security groups: at least one group holds a role.
  4. Chart of accounts: there are postable accounts.
  5. Open accounting period for today: every company has an open period covering today, or postings dated today are refused.
  6. Tax codes and Exchange rates: tax codes exist, and a rate exists for any company that reports in another currency.
  7. Number schemes, Document types and Bindings resolve.
  8. Posting rules and Stock locations, where those areas are installed.

Red stops documents being numbered or posted; amber works but is incomplete. For the chart, periods, tax codes and exchange rates, a holder of the ERP: Finance role is sent straight to the matching tab of Ledger & Finance (Chart of accounts, Periods or Set-up). Someone without that role sees who can do it instead of a button that would refuse them.

Numbering

On Number schemes, a red Missing cell has a Set up button, and a Shared cell has Give it its own. Both open Record Numbering with the document and company filled in. Nothing on this tab allocates a number. See Record Numbering.

Running it as an ERP administrator

A non-architect holding ERP: Administration uses the same console from the Admin Panel, with three limits.

  • A role never implies a company. They see only companies their groups can read, and edit only those they can write to.
  • No self-promotion. They cannot change the roles or the company access of a security group they belong to, and cannot grant more access to a company than they hold themselves.
  • Bindings are read-only. They see binding health; an architect changes the mappings.

Granting ERP: Administration to a group gives it every Admin Panel entry in the ERP - Setup section listed above.

Worked example

On a new installation the checklist is mostly red. The architect adds the company on Companies, grants the Finance group Post on Company access and ERP: Finance on ERP roles, and the count rises. The chart and period rows are still red, so the financial controller (who holds ERP: Finance) presses Open on Chart of accounts, lands on Ledger & Finance, imports the UK template, then generates the year's periods from the Periods row. On Number schemes two document types show Missing; Set up opens Record Numbering for each. The checklist reaches all green before anyone raises a document.

Recommendations

  • Keep two ERP administrators in different groups, because nobody can change their own group's roles or access.
  • Clear every red row before go-live, and treat amber rows as a to-do list for the first month.
  • Use the checklist's Open buttons rather than hunting for datastore tiles; they go to the right screen for your role.
  • Give each company its own number sequence where its documents are seen outside the group.