Firm access

When your accounting firm uses Bokapsys, its staff can work directly in your books - mapping statements, posting journal entries, running reports - without you sharing a password. You stay in control the whole time: nothing is shared until you approve it, you choose what the firm may do, and you can change or remove its access whenever you like.

This page covers the controls you use as the business. For the documents, requests and messages you exchange with your firm, see My Accountant.

Before you start

• To approve a firm’s request, you need a workspace you administer.
• To change what a firm can do, or remove it, your role needs permission to manage your team. Anyone with permission to view the team can see who has access.

How a firm gets access

There are two ways a firm ends up working in your books.

• Your firm set up the workspace for you. If your accountant created your Bokapsys workspace, you were emailed a sign-in address and a temporary password. You own the workspace; the firm works in it with the access level it was given, and you can change that at any time.
• You already use Bokapsys and the firm asks for access. The firm sends an access request to your email address. You approve it and choose which workspace to share.

Approve a firm’s request

1. Open the email from the firm and follow the link. If you are not signed in, click Sign in to continue.
2. Read the request. It names the firm, the level of access it is asking for, and any message it included.
3. In Workspace to share, choose which of your workspaces the firm should work in.
4. Click Grant access, or Decline to refuse. If you decline, the firm is told and nothing is shared.

Every action the firm’s team takes in your workspace is recorded in your audit log.

Access levels

An access level is a named set of permissions that says what an outside firm may do in your workspace. Access levels are separate from the roles your own staff use, so changing one never affects the other.

You manage them in either of two places - they are the same controls:

• My Accountant > What they can do
• Team Management > External access

The page shows three things:

• Access your accountant is asking for - any open request from your firm.
• Who has access right now - each firm, how many of its people have access, how many permissions are in force, and the access level it holds.
• Access levels for your accountant - the levels you have, and what each one grants.

When no firm has access yet, the page says No external firms have access and shows only your access levels, so you can prepare one before a firm asks.

Create or edit an access level

1. Under Access levels for your accountant, click New access level, or the edit button on an existing level.
2. Give it a Name and an optional Description.
3. Tick the permissions it grants. Use the search, or Select all and Clear, to move quickly.
4. Click Save. Everyone at a firm using this level gets exactly these permissions straight away.

To remove a single permission, open the level’s permission list and click the permission you want to take away. It is removed for everyone at every firm using that level, immediately.

You can delete a level only when no firm is using it.

Change a firm’s level

1. Under Who has access right now, click Change level next to the firm.
2. Choose an Access level. The list of what it allows appears underneath.
3. Click Apply. The change reaches everyone from that firm immediately.

Caution

If a firm’s level is shown with a warning that it is still on one of the roles your own team uses, the firm has the same access as that internal role. Choose one of your access levels instead so you decide exactly what the firm can do.

Review a request for more access

When your accountant needs to do more, they send a request rather than changing anything themselves. It appears at the top of What they can do with a note explaining why.

1. Click Review on the request.
2. Untick anything you would rather keep to yourself. You can grant all of it, part of it, or nothing.
3. Optionally write a Note back to them.
4. Click Grant to approve what is still ticked, or Decline to refuse.

Nothing changes until you approve, and the firm is told exactly what you held back. You can remove any of it again afterwards.

Remove access

You can take access away from one person at the firm, or from the whole firm.

Remove one person

Go to Team Management > Members, find the person, and click Deactivate. They lose access to your workspace while everyone else at the firm keeps theirs. Click Reactivate to let them back in.

Note

Use Deactivate, not Remove, for someone from a firm. Who belongs to the firm’s team is managed by the firm, so Bokapsys does not let you remove them - deactivating has the same effect on your workspace.

Remove the whole firm

1. Go to Team Management > External access.
2. Click Show people if you want to check who currently has access.
3. Click Remove access next to the firm and confirm.

Everyone from that firm loses access to your workspace immediately. Nothing they created is deleted, and your audit log keeps a full record of what they did.

What a firm can never do

Four permissions can never be granted to an outside firm, whatever level you choose:

• Deleting your workspace
• Managing your API keys
• Managing your team
• Editing roles

The last two are blocked because they would let a firm widen its own access. They never appear in the list when you build an access level, and a firm cannot request them.

A firm member can also never become the owner or a super admin of your workspace.

How it works

• Changes apply immediately. When you change a level, remove a permission or remove a firm, anyone from that firm who is signed in to your workspace is signed out of it and must open it again, at which point they get only what you now allow.
• The firm’s people come and go with the firm. When a new person joins the firm with permission to work on clients, they get the same access level automatically. When someone leaves the firm, their access to your workspace ends.
• Your own staff are unaffected. Access levels for firms and roles for your own team are kept apart.

Related

My AccountantDocuments, requests, signatures and messages with your firm.

Team and rolesRoles and permissions for your own staff.

Security overviewAudit logs, encryption and sign-in protection.