Separation of Duties is an internal preventative control that helps mitigate insider threats in an organization. While the usefulness of separation of duties is more apparent in larger organizations, there are still many scenarios in a small business environment where it can come in handy. Separation of Duties ensures that no large-scale task is entirely left in control of one individual. This provides checks and balances to your data and systems and helps strengthen accountability. As a small business owner, you may be tempted to fully trust your employees, but unfortunately you cannot do this and also take cybersecurity seriously.
Separation of duties is especially recommended for tasks involving any kind of finance. Your business finances are ripe for fraud and misuse. If your business consists of a handful of employees, you could task one employee with recommending supplies, another with determining the required and available budget for the supplies, and a third with actually purchasing the supplies. As the business owner, you yourself could end the chain by verifying the purchase orders and ensuring the arrival of the appropriate supplies.