User Role - Access to specific feature only
"Business and accounting" role needs ability to more narrowly define. I want an employee to access invoices (receivables) but that then gives them access to ALL financial reporting, e.g. P&L, which I don't want them to see.

Hi community, thank you for your engagement and sharing how you'd like us to evolve roles for customers using Xero. User roles impact all areas of the product, there are many considerations we must factor in when assessing how to solve for majority of our customers needs - As you can see there is a large range of ideas for different roles shared by customers in Product Ideas.
We’re conducting research on the current landscape and how we might approach some of the most predominant needs in roles for our customers. To be upfront, the discovery of this work will be long running and there'll be multiple phases of research and forms of engagement with users that’ll help shape the path ahead in this space.
We’d like to invite you, our community to be part of this research and discovery. This may involve interviews and sharing further feedback through direct surveys or questionnaires.
✍️ If this is something you’d be interested in taking a part of please fill in our short form here.
We may not be able to invite everyone into every stage, however our research team will be in touch with many of you over the coming months.
We'll return to share on the outcomes of our research and any progress around development of roles in Xero.
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Chris Curlett commented
Ramnarong is so correct. It is NOT hard to see what is needed. It is simple and being made complicated by ZERO.
All that is needed as a stary are the classic permissions structure of;
Reports title eg Profit and Loss
View (tick Box for the user to see this)
Print (tick fBox or the user to do this)The other functions are catered for in the main roles such as edit et6c
Come on XERO get on with it.
Look at how many users NEED this!
This can be a progressive roll out across the entire program - do not overcomplicate it!
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Ramnarong Sitthidamrong commented
Come on - Each user has a range of check boxes theadministrator controls- have a look at BNZ Business Banking, where there are many settings for variouus users
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Denene Cleophas commented
We would like to suggest that you enable clients to be able to provide our individual users with specified access to certain functions/reports in the Accounting module.
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Louise Birnie commented
Critical! I would like to be able to give an admin access to add in timesheets for staff but not access all of the payroll and personal details. We receive manual timesheets for offshore staff and currently only I can add their timesheets because I don't want admin staff to be able to view salaries!
Similarly I would like to give various people in the business as we grow access to PO's, Quotes etc without being able to view ALL of the sensitive business financials!
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Leanne Fromont commented
A useful functionality would be multiple access levels where you assign staff to a level and a tick box for functions with in that access. This is common across all of the software packages we use.
I appreciate that this is a big undertaking if your software has not been designed this way to start with, but the community voice is overwhelmingly in favour of this flexibility. -
Michael Collins commented
What I need is a Read Only user to only have access to specific reports, not everything. For instance Sales and Marketing employees not to be able to see P&L etc.
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Louise Alexander commented
What we need is for staff to be able to view their own project budgets without having access to salary information.
This would be a game changer for many of my clients.
Use the accessibility of Xero, but not have it so accessible that members of staff who are bright can access all the information!!
This is a key requirement that clients are facing and at the moment Xero can't deliver, so it's hard for me to recommend Xero
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Katie Howell commented
We want staff to be able to view customer statements but not have access to our firm's bank account.
Currently this is not possible when editing the user permissions.
We have always used a QuickBooks desktop where this has been possible.
If one of the partners is no in the office, the staff cannot access a customer balance, and we do not want to provide them access to view the firm's bank account.
We hope this is rectified soon.
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Chris Curlett commented
Come on XERO with 180+ users wanting this then it needs to be done. The permissions are far to generic to be of any real use or security.
We have the same problems as other users here re permissions and access - it needs ti be tightened up as a matter of urgency.
Please listen to your users and do what they need rather than "fads" like the new invoicing system
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Daniel East commented
XERO - Where are you guys with this... This great idea is a MUST as we have many roles in our business & would like to have more options to restrict areas/customize of access to our staff.
- Invoices & only 1x bank account access for payment receivables & Purchase orders.
- Payable bills/ Purchase orders only without seeing "income/receivables -
Richard Costello commented
This is a great idea, it would be really helpful!!
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Abigail Fry commented
After finding a new button for tracking in my invoice-only account I was disappointed to discover this button did not work because I did not have full access permissions from my superior.
Therefore after discussions with my manager we suggest that Xero induce personalised options for account permissions.
Making it so Invoice-only accounts can be added to specific areas of the software such as tracking options.
Some employers would like to give their accounts department these kinds of permissions to reduce time spent on basic admin tasks that can be set to invoice only employees. However they might not want to give the employee access to payment allocation settings.
Giving companies the ability to tailor their accounts to meet specific needs and reduce time spent relaying information such as " This account manager needs adding to the software tracking" or " This end client needs adding to the company".
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Nicole Clark commented
This would be incredibly helpful for clients, please prioritise this as an update.
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Charlotte Rix commented
Yes I want staff to have access to debtors/creditors reports, reconcile credit card accounts only
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Gerrit Grobbelaar commented
Access rights in the system is an issue for many companies and has also been a reason for companies to opt for another software.
We believe that it would be beneficial if you can add an option to choose between simple and advanced user roles.
Advanced should include the option to restrict access to certain menu items.
Even a high level restriction would be helpful i.e. Hiding Dashboard tab, in Business being able to select Invoicing, purchases or stock or a combination of these menus to access, etc.In addition, an option to be an approver or not in the case where someone captures and invoice and a manager needs to approve.
This will lean to assist in the segregation of duties and limit access to sensitive information.
Thank you
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Sarah Franks commented
This is desperately needed. Customising access to certain fields such as staff being able to create and edit invoices at draft only stage. Or give them access to create invoices but then "tick" to ensure that they have to submit for approval rather than just allow them to issue, approve and send invoices without them being checked.
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John Zito commented
I agree, its about having a separation of user levels & access to very confidential company data. One should be for financial administration, so invoice raising, reconciling, general accounts function, inventory, warehouse or sales work should be completely different access from full access to all the profit and loss, balance sheet and complete financial performance of the company available only to company owners/directors. Bank account access is useful in some roles to make sure oney is coming in and correct, but I do take issue with the performance of the company including the income statement being accessible.
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Kay Phillips commented
This should definitely be a priority update. My client needs her admin assistant to process the expenses through Hubdoc but as we cannot limit her access to Xero they are having to look into other software programmes for receipt and invoice upload. I do not believe they should have to pay extra or add on the expenses in Xero if Hubdoc is a free service
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Dr Morse commented
Absolutely necessary. There should be tick boxes against the list of reports so we can choose which is applicable per standard user.
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Jean Marc Zanni commented
In the Same Vain, You can directly approve an Invoice as it is created., but for a Purchase order, You need to:
- Submit for approval
- Approve from the Waiting approval list,
- Switch to approved
- Re-open the Purchase Order from the approved list
- Then you can Send...I can understand in large organization, that Approval by a separate person is critical. But I am one person Office... I do not need to have that level of protection.