In brief
Access rights, password policies, disaster recovery plans, GDPR compliance: data security in a financial ERP system is not merely a technical issue. It is a strategic challenge that involves the entire organization. This article provides an overview of the essential measures you need to implement to protect your company’s financial data.
A company’s financial data is among the most sensitive and sought-after information. Customer data, accounting information, cash flow, supplier data: a financial ERP system centralizes it all. This centralization is a strength, but it also creates a single point of risk concentration. A security breach, data loss, or GDPR violation can have major operational, financial, and reputational consequences. How can you protect against them?
This article details the three pillars of an effective data security strategy in a financial ERP system: security policy, user support, and the reliability of the information system.
A true data security policy
The volume of data generated and managed by a company continues to grow, regardless of its size. This information represents a veritable goldmine, whether it pertains to customers, vendors, products, or markets. Most companies implement an IT project and adopt a financial ERP system to manage and leverage this data. It is essential to rely on a reliable information system and ensure data security to prevent data from being stolen, corrupted, or lost.
It is important to implement a company-wide IT security policy. Security measures affect all areas of the business. Premises must be secured, as must access to company data and tools.
To be effective, a security measure must strike a balance between the level of protection and ease of use. For example, there’s no point in imposing overly strict password policies if users then end up writing their passwords on Post-it notes because they can’t remember them. Authentication using a personalized PKI card eliminates the need to memorize complex passwords and provides better security for the workstation.
A crucial aspect of data security is access rights management. All too often, access rights are granted too quickly and too broadly. Profiles must be established to assign rights based on actual needs.
To secure a company’s data and IT systems, a new position has been created in many organizations. This role is the Chief Security Officer (CSO), who is responsible for developing and overseeing policies and programs designed to mitigate security risks related to people, intellectual property, reputation, and physical assets.
It is also essential to establish data governance before embarking on a Big Data project, in order to provide a framework for the collection and use of the company’s data.
Support in business processes
Implementing a financial ERP system leads to a significant change in work habits. A realistic change management policy must be put in place to facilitate the learning process and support users. Such an approach will minimize the risk of data loss resulting from user errors.
Everyone must be responsible for how they use the data. The software must therefore track every record, allow the author to be identified, and maintain a log of changes so that a previous version can be restored if necessary.
The export of data from the CRM must also be monitored and restricted to prevent any data leaks to competitors and ensure compliance with the GDPR.
To learn more about change management in an ERP project: ERP Finance: What You Need to Know Before You Get Started
Data security: a reliable information system
Data security requires a reliable and robust information system. Access must be filtered, and data must be backed up. A disaster recovery plan (DRP) must be implemented. This way, in the event of a significant loss of sensitive information, it will be possible to restore a recent backup and, thereby, resume business operations.
To ensure you have all the necessary security measures in place, it is important to regularly update your software and hardware to install the latest versions and fix any security vulnerabilities.
ERP Data Security and Choosing a Deployment Model
The choice between a cloud-based ERP (SaaS) and an on-premises ERP has a direct impact on data security. A SaaS ERP hosted by a certified provider (ISO 27001, SecNumCloud for the most sensitive environments) benefits from automatic security updates and a continuously maintained infrastructure.
An on-premises ERP system offers complete control over data, but requires internal maintenance and carries an increased risk if updates are delayed. In any case, the location of the data (hosting in Europe) and the hosting provider’s certifications are factors to consider when choosing a solution.
ERP Finance Data Security: A Challenge That SQORUS Has Mastered
Data security in a financial ERP system is a cross-functional issue: it involves the IT department, finance teams, human resources, and senior management. It cannot be addressed in isolation but must be addressed as part of a comprehensive information system transformation project.
For more than 35 years, SQORUS has been supporting large enterprises and mid-sized companies in their financial ERP projects, with a particular focus on data governance, regulatory compliance, and system security.
Our specialized consultants incorporate these considerations starting with the project scoping phase to ensure that the selected solution meets your organization’s security requirements.
Would you like to secure your ERP Finance project? Contact us!
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FAQ – Data Security in a Financial ERP System
What are the three principles of data security?
Data security is based on three fundamental principles, summarized by the acronym CIA:
- confidentiality (only authorized individuals have access to the data),
- integrity (data cannot be modified without authorization) and availability (data
- and systems remain accessible to legitimate users when they need them).
In a financial ERP system, these three principles are implemented in practice through access rights management, change tracking, and the establishment of a disaster recovery plan.
How does a financial ERP system protect data against cyberattacks?
A modern financial ERP system incorporates several layers of protection: access rights management based on user profiles, full audit trails (who did what and when), encryption of sensitive data, automatic backups, and regular security updates.
In cloud-based SaaS solutions, these safeguards are continuously maintained by the vendor, without any technical intervention on the part of the customer. User training and change management remain key factors in mitigating risks associated with human error.
What are the four criteria for information security?
The four criteria for information security are confidentiality, integrity, availability, and traceability (sometimes referred to as "proof").
This framework, which is aligned with the ISO 27001 standard and recognized by ANSSI, provides the structure for any information system security policy.
In a financial ERP system, traceability is particularly critical: it allows you to track the history of every action taken on financial data and to meet audit and regulatory compliance requirements.
What are the four pillars of cybersecurity?
The four pillars of cybersecurity are:
- confidentiality (restricting access to data to authorized individuals only),
- integrity (ensuring that the data has not been altered),
- availability (ensuring continuous access to systems)
- and traceability (logging actions to detect and document any incidents).
For a financial ERP system, these four pillars translate into concrete measures: user profile management, regular backups, a disaster recovery plan, and audit logs.
