Roles

Roles control what your team members can do in Flow Retail. Instead of setting up permissions for each person individually, you assign them a role — and the role includes everything they need.

Quick answer: Most store staff need Salesperson at Store level. Store managers need Store Manager at Store level. See common combinations below.

How roles work

A role is a collection of permissions bundled together. When you assign a role to a user, they get all the permissions included in that role.

Roles can be assigned at three levels:

Level	What it means	Example
Whole Company (tenant)	Access to all stores across all organizations	Administrators, head office staff
Organization	Access to all stores within one legal entity	Managers overseeing one organization
Store	Access to one store only	Store staff, local managers

Access works top-down: Whole Company access automatically includes all organizations and stores. Organization access includes all stores in that organization. Store access covers just that one store.

Store level is enough for most users

Save Whole Company access for people who really need to see everything.

When a user has multiple roles

If a user has roles at different levels, their permissions combine. For example:

• A user with Salesperson at Store level for "Oslo" can only work in the Oslo store

• Add Accounting at Whole Company level, and they can also view reports for all stores

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Choosing the right role

Here's what we recommend for common user types:

Job function	Role	Level
Sales associate	Salesperson	Store
Store manager	Store Manager	Store
Multi-store manager	Store Manager	Organization
Head office staff	Backoffice	Whole Company
Accountant	Accounting	Whole Company
Warehouse worker	Warehouse	Store (or Whole Company)
Business owner / IT admin	Administrator	Whole Company

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Default system roles

Flow Retail includes six pre-configured roles. You can use these directly or as templates for custom roles.

Role	Description	Includes	Use for
Administrator	Full access to everything	All permissions	Business owners, IT admins
Backoffice	Admin access without full system control	Products, customers, reporting, purchasing, and more	Head office staff, operations managers
Store Manager (Butikksjef)	Full control of day-to-day store operations	Sales, returns, , stock, reporting, till operations	Store managers, shift supervisors
Salesperson (Selger)	Permissions for everyday sales work	Sales orders, returns, customer info, till operations	Sales associates, retail staff
Accounting (Regnskap)	Access to reports only	Reporting	Accountants, financial controllers
Warehouse (Lager)	Permissions for warehouse and inventory work	Goods receiving, stock management, stocktaking	Warehouse staff, stock controllers

Limit Administrator to a small number of people. It bypasses all permission checks and gives full access to everything.

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Custom roles

If the default roles don't fit your needs, you can create custom roles with any combination of permissions.

This is useful when you need to:

• Combine permissions from multiple default roles

• Limit access to specific features

• Support job functions that don't fit the default roles

See Permissions for a full list of available permissions.

Tip: You don't need to recreate a full role just to add one permission. Create a small custom role with only the extra permission, and assign it alongside the default role. The user gets both sets of permissions combined.

Required permission

Creating and managing custom roles requires the USER permission, which is included in the Administrator and Backoffice roles.

How do I create a custom role?

1

Open roles in Admin

Head to Users → Roles in Admin and select New Role.

2

Configure the role

Give it a descriptive name and select the permissions to include.

3

Save

Select Save. You can now assign the custom role to users like any other role.

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Managing roles

Head to Users → Roles in Admin to manage roles. From here you can:

• View all available roles and their permissions

• Create new custom roles

• Edit existing custom roles

• Delete custom roles that are no longer needed

System roles (Administrator, Backoffice, Store Manager, Salesperson, Accounting, Warehouse) cannot be modified or deleted.

Assigning roles to users

Roles are assigned when you create or edit a user. See Users for step-by-step instructions.

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Best practices

✅ Do

• Start with the least access needed — it's easier to add access later than to clean up after too much

• Match role to actual job function — a salesperson doesn't need Store Manager access

• Review roles regularly — as your business changes, check that role assignments still match actual job functions

• Name custom roles clearly — use descriptive names that explain what the role is for

❌ Don't

• Don't give everyone Administrator — it bypasses all permission checks and should be limited to a few people

• Don't use Whole Company for store staff — reserve it for people who genuinely need to see everything

• Don't forget to remove access — when someone changes role or leaves, update their permissions

• Don't skip documentation — if you create custom roles, note what each is for and who should have it