Roles and powers

Who holds which role

Every person who signs in holds one or more roles. A role is a named set of powers: what that person can see and what they can change. New books start with five roles.

Full access can do everything, including people, logins and settings. Full books access can do everything inside the books. Approver approves bills and claims, and nothing else. Expense submitter files their own expense claims and follows them, and nothing else. Read only reads everything and writes nothing.

Full access

Full access is the top role. It holds every power in the app: the books themselves and the people side too — adding people, handing out logins, changing roles and changing settings.

Give it to the few people who run the app itself. Most societies need one or two. The books must never be left with none.

Full books access

Full books access is the everyday working role. It covers everything inside the books: money in and money out, bills, claims, journals, reports, tax, closing the books and making packs.

It cannot touch the people side: no new people, no logins, no roles, no settings. A person with this role can also file their own expense claims.

Approver

An Approver approves bills and claims, and that is all. An Approver cannot enter a bill, cannot record money and cannot pay.

The split is the point. The person who says a payment may go out is never the person who entered it. No one can approve their own payment, whatever roles they hold. That rule stands over every role.

Expense submitter

An Expense submitter starts expense claims and follows their own claims, and nothing else. They cannot see the books, anyone else’s claims or move money.

This is the role for a member or volunteer who spends their own money for the society and asks it back. Their claim waits for someone else to approve it, like every claim.

Read only

Read only reads everything and writes nothing. Every page, every report, every figure — and no button changes anything.

There are no exceptions. A person with only this role cannot even file a claim, because filing a claim writes to the books. This is the role for a director who wants to keep an eye on the books, and for the accountant.

Holding several roles

One person can hold more than one role. Their powers add up. A person with Approver and Expense submitter can pass other people’s bills and file their own claims. They still cannot pass their own claim, because no one can.

In a small society, one trusted person often holds Full books access and Approver at once.

The accountant

The accountant is a person like any other. There is no special accountant login. Invite them on the People page and give them Read only. They can read the whole year and change nothing.

Or send them the sealed pack, which needs no login at all. If the accountant also files claims for the society, add Expense submitter, like anyone else.

Roles are not the board

A role is about the books. It is not a board seat. Standing as a director is a separate fact, recorded on the People page. The law notes count the board from that list.

A director may hold no login at all. A person with Full access is not a director unless the board list says so.

Changing a role

Roles are given out on the People page, by a person with Full access or the administrator power. Books opened before these five roles keep the roles they have. No one’s access changes on its own. New people get roles from the five.