Setting staff account permissions

It's important to create staff accounts for other people that are accessing your Shopify admin. With staff accounts, you can set staff account permissions to limit what sections of your Shopify admin your staff has access to, helping to make sure your personal information remains secure.

The reasons for using staff permissions will be different for each store. For example, you might want to use staff permissions in the following cases:

• If you don't want staff members to see any of your sales information (for example, sales by month or sales by staff) on the Reports page.
• If you don't want staff members to access any sensitive apps that might affect your business on the Apps page.
• If you don't want staff members to change any of your general store settings (for example, your store address or your credit card information) on the Settings page.

Note

When you restrict a staff member from a section of the admin, they will still see it in the sidebar of the admin, but they won't be able to click or view any part of that section. For example, if you restrict a staff member from accessing your Settings page, then you also restrict them from accessing the shipping and the tax settings.

All available staff permissions

You can set staff account permissions from your Shopify admin.

Each type of staff account permission gives your staff access to a different part of your Shopify admin:

Permission	Description
General
Home	Access to information on the Home page, including sales information.
Orders	Create, view, update, and delete orders and order notifications.
Draft Orders	Access to create, modify, and delete custom created orders.
Products	Access to view, create, and modify products. Access to inventory and inventory management. Access to view, create, and modify collections
Gift cards	Access to view and create gift cards.
Customers	Access to view the customer database, and the ability to create, modify, and delete customers.
Reports	Access to all available reports. At this time, you can't select specific reports that staff members can and can't access.
Dashboards	Access to the Overview dashboard, which provides an overview of sales and statistics for all sales channels.
Discounts	Access to view and create discounts.
Apps	Access to view and click on applications. Only the account owner can approve application charges. Staff accounts require full permissions to download free apps.
Settings	Access to view the settings sections for General, Payments, Checkout, Shipping, Taxes, Gift cards, Notifications, Files, Sales Channels, Billing and Account (the Account overview section and the Staff accounts section). Access to create webhooks to send data about the topics that the staff member has the permissions to view. Only the account owner can view billing information or make changes to the store's subscription or banking information.
Online store
Themes	Access to change and modify the theme that the store is using.
Blog Posts and Pages	Access to create, modify, and delete blog posts and pages.
Navigation	Access to create, modify, and delete navigation buttons.
Domains	Access to view and modify domain information.
Point of sale
Locations	Access to create, modify, and delete POS locations.

Example staff account permissions

Note

These are generic examples of what staff account permissions might look like. Permissions will vary from merchant to merchant depending on your specific needs.

The types of staff accounts that you can create will vary based on your needs. The following examples show accounts and the restrictions that you can apply to them:

Developer permissions

This is an example of an account you would create if you have somebody designing or setting up your store. In general, this account type shouldn't have access to account details or anything to do with the store's finances (for example, Home, Settings, or Reports). The developer or designer would need access to places where there is coding (for example, Navigation, Themes, and Blog Posts and Pages). If the developer needs to test a payment provider, then they would also need access to Orders.

The developer might need an app at some point, but it might be best that they contact you to ask for those permissions so that you don't get billed for the app without knowing. For the same reasons, it might be better for the developer to ask for permission to access Gift cards.

These are the types of access permissions that you might give a developer:

Accountant permissions

This is an example of an account you would create for somebody looking after your finances and accounting. In general, this account needs access to financial, sales, and tax information.

Since an accountant needs complete access to Shopify Payments, you should grant accountants full account permissions.

Basic staff member permissions

This account type is likely to vary because each merchant is different. It's important that you decide what you want your staff members to do. For example, is the staff member doing maintenance, or is the staff member managing your store?

Give staff members their own accounts so that if they contact Shopify Support, then we know what permissions they have in your store. Staff members need to authenticate in order for Shopify Support to be able to log in to your store's admin.

These are the types of access permissions that you might give a staff member:

Set staff account permissions

After you invite a new staff member to set up an account, you can immediately set or change the areas of the admin that they have permission to access. By default, the staff member is set to have full permissions and access to the admin when you create a new account.

Note

Staff members with full permissions can modify the permissions of other staff members.

There are a few differences between a staff account with full permissions and the account owner's permissions. For example, staff accounts with full permissions can't perform the following tasks:

• Download paid themes or apps.
• Delete the account owner's account.
• Modify billing or subscription information.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Account.

iPhone

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.
2. Under Store settings, tap Account.

Android

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.
2. Under Store settings, tap Account.

1. In the Accounts and permissions section, click a staff member's name to open the account details.

2. In the Admin Access section, uncheck the checkbox next to Staff member has full permissions.

3. Click on the checkboxes next to the areas of the admin that you want your staff member to have access to.

4. Click Save to confirm your changes.

The staff account will have these permissions applied to it now.

Staff permissions on the Shopify app

Your staff members can log in to the Shopify app using their own Shopify credentials. If a staff member has limited permissions, then they can view only the areas of the Shopify app that they have the permissions for. For example, if they don't have permission to view the Home page of the Shopify admin, then the Home button won't appear in the Shopify app.

To see the Orders screen, staff need more than just permission to view the Orders page of the Shopify admin. The permissions that staff need to view the Orders screen are:

• Orders
• Products
• Customers.

Staff members who don't have the above permissions in the Shopify admin won't be able to view the Orders screen when they log in to the Shopify app.

Managing sales channels on the mobile app

If a staff member needs to make changes to parts of the online store on the mobile app, then they need more than the relevant online store permissions. To make changes within a sales channel, staff members need the Home, Reports, and Apps permissions in addition to the permissions for the specific task. For example, the permissions that staff need to create and edit blog posts are:

• Home.
• Reports.
• Apps.
• Blog posts and pages.

Staff members who don't have the above permissions in the Shopify admin won't be able to view the Blog posts screen when they log in to the Shopify app.

Revoke staff member device permissions

If your staff members are using a device or an application for your Shopify store (for example, Shopify Mobile or Shopify POS), then you can force a logout and require the staff member to log in again. This can be helpful if the device is lost and you want to prevent unknown users from accessing your store.

Steps:

1. Log in as the account owner.

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Account.

iPhone

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.
2. Under Store settings, tap Account.

Android

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.
2. Under Store settings, tap Account.

1. In the Accounts and permissions section, click the staff member's name.

2. In the Applications section, click Revoke Access next to the appropriate device or application.

3. In the confirmation dialog, click Revoke to confirm.

This staff member will no longer be able to access your store using that device.

Choose a new account owner

You can choose another staff member to be the account owner for your Shopify store.

Caution

Your store can have only one account owner at a time, and only the account owner can have full access to every part of the Shopify admin and manage the account details and billing. If you choose another staff member to be the account owner, then you will lose this unrestricted access and will no longer be able to change the account owner.

Steps:

1. Log in as the Shopify store account owner.

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Account.

iPhone

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.
2. Under Store settings, tap Account.

Android

1. From the Shopify app, go to Store > Settings.
2. Under Store settings, tap Account.

1. In the Accounts and permissions section, click the name of the person that you want to be the new account owner.

2. In the Admin Access section, click Make staff member the account owner.

3. In the confirmation dialog, enter your password then click Transfer account ownership to complete the change of account ownership.

Now only the new owner will be able to change the account owner again.