You can use employee roles to group and limit your employees' levels of access in your Retail account. For example, you might want to disable access to the Reports section for employees with the Associate role. Because multiple employees can be assigned to the same employee role, you'll also save time by not having to set or edit permissions for every individual employee.
Should an employee need their own set of permissions, you can give them a Custom employee role and set their permissions from within their employee account. For more information on how to do so, please see the What's next? section of our Adding employees article.
Before you begin
Before adding a multitude of employees, first define a well-structured set of employee roles. Although Lightspeed Retail includes built-in roles such as: Owner, Admin, Manager and Associate to help you get started, we encourage you to define the roles that make the most sense for your business. If you do, give new employee roles meaningful names such as Summer Intern or Floor Manager for example.
When adding new employee roles, also keep in mind the following rules surrounding employee roles:
- You can add up to 21 custom employee roles.
- Every employee role you add needs to have a unique name.
- Built-in roles (e.g. Owner or Admin) can't be archived.
- Only unassigned employee roles can be archived and unarchived.
Add an employee role
- From the main menu, click Settings > Employee Roles.
- Click + New Employee Role.
- Give the new employee role a meaningful name.
- Configure the permissions of the employee role (see the table below).
- Click Save Changes.
Employee role permissions
General - All | Enables or disables all General permissions. |
External login | Can log into Lightspeed Retail from any device connected to the internet when the Lightspeed Retail session is closed. A user without external login rights can only log into Lightspeed Retail using their access PIN locally when the application is open. |
Reports |
|
Edit employee time clock entries | Can edit clock in/out entries of other employees. |
Manager Override (beta) |
Can manually enter identification details for items that require age verification. |
Service | Can access the Service area. |
Sales - All | Enables or disables all Sales permissions. |
Sales | Can access the Sales area. Disabling this option prevents the user from making sales. |
Sales - Refund | Can process a refund. |
Sales - Open Register | Can open a register (till) to process sales and refunds. This does not apply to a user’s ability to physically open a register. |
Sales - Register Withdraw | Can withdraw money from a register. |
Sales - Close Register | Can close a register. |
Sales - Change Prices | Can change the prices of items. If this is enabled and the employee has inventory access, they can change an item’s price from the item settings for all subsequent sales, and also directly from a sale, which affects the item price for that sale only. If the employee does not have inventory access, they can only change an item’s price for a sale. |
Sales - Import Catalog Item | Can import items from catalogs to the local inventory from the Sales screen. |
Sales - Layaways & Special Orders | Can create layaways & special orders. |
Sales - Line Only Discount | Can apply a discount to individual line items. |
Sales - Entire Sale Discount | Can apply discounts to an entire sale. |
Inventory - All |
Enables or disables all Inventory permissions. |
Inventory - Basic |
Can access the Inventory area. Can also add serial numbers during the sale of serialized items. |
Inventory - Show quantity-on-hand for all locations |
Can see the quantity-on-hand (QOH) of an item in all locations regardless of their location access. If enabled, the QOH of an item in all locations displays when:
If disabled, can only see the QOH of an item in locations that they have access to. |
Inventory - Product Cost |
Description
Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Product Create & Edit |
Description Can create new items or edit existing items. This is required for more advanced permissions that add or remove inventory. Can also edit existing serial numbers. Prerequisites
|
Inventory - Special Orders |
Description Can view existing special orders. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Purchase Orders |
Description Can create and edit purchase orders. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Purchase Orders - Add Received to Inventory |
Description Can add received items in purchase orders to inventory. Prerequisites
|
Inventory - Vendor Returns |
Description Can access and send vendor returns. Prerequisites
|
Inventory - Counts |
Description Can create inventory counts and enter count data. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Counts - Reconcile |
Description Can reconcile an inventory count. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Transfers |
Description Can create, build and receive transfers between locations. Transfers are only available in multi-store accounts. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Transfers: Send stock for transfer |
Description Can send items in transfers between locations. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Import Images and Items |
Description Can import both items and item images into inventory. Prerequisites
|
Inventory - Vendors |
Description Can edit vendors. Prerequisite
|
Inventory - Categories | Can edit categories. |
Inventory - Brands | Can edit brands. |
Inventory - Tags | Can edit tags. |
Inventory - Vendor Return Reasons |
Description Can edit vendor return reasons. Prerequisites
|
eCom - All | Enables or disables all eCom permissions. |
eCom - Basic | Can access eCom from the main menu drop-down. |
Customers - All | Enables or disables all Customers permissions. |
Customers - Basic | Can access the Customers area. Can also edit existing serial numbers. |
Customers - Export |
Can export customer data from the following areas:
|
Customers - Credit Limit | Can set credit limits for customers. |
Customers - Customer Deletion | Can delete customer accounts and anonymize customer data in entire Retail account. |
Customers - View Gift Card Numbers | Can see full gift card numbers instead of just the last four digits. |
Payments Reports - All | Enables or disables all Payments Reports permissions. |
Report - Settlements | Can access the Settlements report. |
Settings - All | Enables or disables all Settings permissions. |
Settings - Basic | Can access the Settings area. |
Settings - Setup Shops | Can access Locations under Settings. |
Settings - Employee Setup | Can access Employee Setup and Employee Roles under Settings. |
Settings - Employee Account Deletion | Can delete employee accounts and anonymize employee data in entire Retail account. |
Settings - Sales Setup | Can set price rules, discounts, payment types, and taxes. |
Settings - Void Sales |
Can void transactions. |
Settings - Pricing | Can access inventory-related settings under Settings. |
Settings - Register Rules (beta) |
Can add, configure and archive register rules. |
What's next?
Now that you've added your employee roles, add employees and assign them to an employee role. For detailed instructions on how to do so, please see our Adding employees article.
If you already have existing employees, simply reassign them to the correct employee role if required.