HR can turn off a login. NetSuite does not, on its own, retire the rest of the person. Searches still list them as owner. Reminders can still show up on a dashboard they used to live on. A bill can sit because the only approver is someone who does not work there anymore.
We usually find this while we are already in the account for something else. A bill will not move. The controller left last month, or she moved into another seat, and the account never got the memo. By then, someone on our side has spent enough time in AP that the team simply asks him the questions they used to ask her. That is usually the first sign she is still in the system in pieces.
This is the pass we run with whoever is taking the seat. It is not a full security audit. It is the short list that keeps close from inheriting a ghost.
1. Start on Access, not with the rumor that login is off
Open the employee record.
Lists > Employees > [Employee]
If you cannot find them, they may already be inactive. On the Employees list, turn on Show Inactives.
Lists > Employees
Show Inactives
On the record, go to Access.
Lists > Employees > [Employee] > Access
Access on an employee in a Salora sandbox. Give Access is the obvious box. The role and the approver flags are how they stay in the account after the last day.
Look at four things before you leave this tab.
Give Access is on or off. Off means they should not be able to log in. It does not mean their role, their searches, or their approval flags went with them.
The employee is still Active. Inactivating the record is a different decision from taking login away. Teams often do one and forget the other.
Which roles are still assigned. A leftover role is how they keep a dashboard, a center, and permissions that other people quietly inherited as “the way AP is set up.”
The approver checkboxes. Bill, bill payment, requisition, vendor bank details, whatever your account uses. If those are still ticked, NetSuite can still treat them as the person who is supposed to say yes.
If they should be gone, uncheck Give Access, take the roles off (or leave one tightly scoped role only if your admin process requires a shell record), and clear the approver flags. Do that with whoever owns security, not from a hallway conversation.
2. Find every saved search they still own
This is the part that shows up at 7:40 a.m. on close. The report still runs. Nobody is sure it is the copy she actually used.
Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches
All Saved Searches in a Salora sandbox. Use the Owner column. That is how you find the work still attached to their name.
Filter or sort until you are only looking at their name. If the list is long, export it and work the export. Do not hunt by memory.
For each search that still matters, open it.
Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches > Edit
On the search itself, check Public, and the “available as” boxes (list view, dashboard view, reminders, show in menu). Those are how a private experiment became the default list for a role.
Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches > Edit > Audience
Audience is who can run it. If Audience is wide because that was easier than explaining the search, tighten it now that the next person owns it.
Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches > Edit > Email
If the search emails on a schedule, the recipient list is often still her. Change it before the next Tuesday 6 a.m. surprise.
Do not stop at changing the owner. If the previous owner can no longer log in, an administrator has to assign a new owner, and that new owner has to log in with the right role and resave the search. The same resave is required if you hand the search to someone who has never scheduled a saved search before. Change the owner and walk away, and the scheduled email can simply stop.
Same sandbox. Owner is at the top of the definition. Email is where the schedule and the recipient list still know her.
Reassign the keepers to the person who will run them. Hide or inactivate the rest, if that is allowed in your process. Do not leave a close search owned by someone who cannot answer a question about the columns.
A short approved list helps after this cleanup: close, AP, AR, inventory, fulfillment. Five searches, maybe seven. The point is that a new hire can find the keepers without asking the person who left.
3. Reminders, dashboards, and the email that still knows them
Login can be off and the account can still nag an inbox.
A saved search only becomes eligible for the Reminders portlet after Available for Reminders is checked on the search. Someone still has to add it. On Home, open the Reminders portlet menu and choose Set Up. Audience members can add that reminder too. It does not attach itself to a role just because she used to hold that role.
Home > Reminders portlet > Set Up
If the reminder should not exist anymore, clear Available for Reminders on the search, or take it off the new person’s portlet in Set Up.
Reports > Saved Searches > All Saved Searches > Edit
Published dashboards keep old habits too. If AP “always” opens to her layout, that layout may be published to a role you did not touch on Access.
Home > Settings portlet > Publish Dashboard
To open an existing published dashboard, use List next to Publish Dashboard, then Edit.
Home > Settings portlet > Publish Dashboard > List > Edit
Home, Settings portlet, in the same sandbox. Publish Dashboard is here, with List beside it. It is not under Setup > Users/Roles.
Open the dashboard AP actually uses and confirm the portlets still make sense for the people who remain.
Also check login history if you are not sure they are truly out.
Setup > Users/Roles > View Login Audit Trail
You want a last login that matches the last day, not a login from last Tuesday that nobody can explain.
4. Approval routing and workflows still waiting on them
This is the bill that will not move. Someone on our side has sat through a morning of that more than once: the routing is fine, the person it is waiting on is not.
Not every stuck approval lives in a custom SuiteFlow workflow. Some accounts use native transaction approval (Approval Status on the bill, plus the approver flags on Access). Some use SuiteApprovals. Look at the bill that will not move and see which of those it actually is, then follow the person.
If it is SuiteFlow:
Customization > Workflow > Workflows
Search for workflows on vendor bills, purchase orders, journal entries, and anything else your team treats as money. Open the ones that are released.
Customization > Workflow > Workflows > [Workflow] > Edit
Look at who the states send work to. Employee, supervisor, a named approver, a saved search of approvers. If the path still resolves to the person who left, put in the substitute you should have had for vacation, then keep it for turnover.
If they use SuiteApprovals:
Setup > Approval Process Manager > Approval Rule List
Check the rules that still name her, or still assume her employee hierarchy.
If people have been emailing around the approval since she left, the process in NetSuite is documenting something the team already stopped believing. Fix the routing before you tell them to “just use NetSuite.”
5. What “done” looks like
You are done when the next close can run without anyone asking Salora, or the new controller, to “just run it” the way she did.
Practically, that means:
The employee cannot log in, and they are inactive if that is your standard.
No leftover roles or approver flags on Access.
Every saved search that still matters has an owner who works there. If it sends scheduled email, that owner has logged in and resaved it, and the recipient list is not the old inbox.
Reminders were added on purpose to the people who remain, not inherited as a leftover from her dashboard.
The AP dashboard belongs to the role, not to her personal layout.
Approvals have a living approver and a substitute, whether that lives in SuiteFlow, SuiteApprovals, or native routing.
Sit with the person taking the seat when you do this. Following a name through Owner, Audience, Email, and the approval path is faster with someone who knows which searches were real. It is boring in the way that close is boring when it is going well.
If you want a second pair of eyes on the list, Salora ERP will sit in it with you until the name is someone who still works there.