Roles and permissions

What this does

Every team member has exactly one role per shop. The role decides which sidebar sections appear, which screens open, and which actions (approve, void, post) are allowed. Roles are assigned under Settings → Team and can be changed at any time.

The roles

Owner — everything. The person who created the shop is the Owner. Only an Owner or General Manager can change roles.

General Manager — everything an Owner can do inside the shop, including all of accounting, all settings, deleting customers, and changing team and roles.

Service Manager — runs the counter and the floor: customers, estimates (including approval), work orders (assign, change status), parts orders, scheduling, messages, inspections and their review, inventory, declined services, and the operational settings (bays, canned jobs, inspection templates, technicians). No accounting, no team or role changes.

Office Manager — the front desk and the light books: customers, estimates, work orders, invoices, scheduling, messages, and recording customer payments. Can view accounting and reports but not manage the ledger. Cannot approve estimates or assign work.

Service Writer — the counter role: customers, vehicles, estimates, work orders (assign and change status), invoices, recording payments, parts orders, inspections review, declined services, messages, scheduling, inventory view. No accounting, no settings.

Accountant — the books only: view accounting, write checks, post journal entries, run reports. Cannot record customer payments (that's a counter action), cannot manage the chart of accounts, and has no shop-floor or sales access. Today the Banking screens (Transaction Inbox, reconciliation, transfers, statement import, card charges, deposits) need the Owner or General Manager role, so a bookkeeper who runs banking needs General Manager for now. If your bookkeeper also needs to take payments, use Office Manager.

Tier 1 Technician — the floor: technician dashboard, assigned work orders, shop floor board, inspections (create), diagnostics (create), assets, storage, parts-order view, customer view, clock in and out. Cannot create or edit work orders, and has no invoice or accounting access.

Tier 2 Technician — a narrower Tier 1 Technician: dashboard, assigned work orders, shop floor, inspections, assets, storage, clock in and out. No customer records, no parts orders, no diagnostics.

Choosing

Give the fewest permissions that let the person do their job. The two most common mistakes are making every counter person a General Manager (which gives them the ledger) and making the bookkeeper an Accountant when they also cash out customers (which locks them out of payments).

Custom roles

Settings → Roles lets an Owner or General Manager adjust the permission set behind each role for this shop. The lists above are the defaults. If your shop has changed them, what a role can do is whatever that screen shows.

Common problems

A teammate can't see the Accounting section. Their role doesn't include accounting. Only Owner, General Manager, Office Manager (view), and Accountant have it.

A technician can't clock in. Every role can clock in. If the button is missing, the person isn't a member of this shop; check Settings → Team.