Roles & Permissions
Every staff member is assigned a role when they're added to the team. Your role determines what you see in the menu and what actions you can take.
The tables on this page show the standard permissions each role starts with. An Admin can change them for your institution in Admin → User Permissions (see Changing what a role can do below), so what you see in the app may differ slightly from the tables if that has been done.
Role descriptions
| Role | What they do |
|---|---|
| Admin | Full access to everything: all branches, all configuration (loan products, fees, approval rules, custom fields), team management, and can approve any loan regardless of configuration. |
| Branch Manager | Runs day-to-day operations for one branch. Can add, view, and update borrowers, loans, and accounts for their own branch, and can manage the team members who work there. Cannot see or change anything belonging to other branches. Always required to approve loans. |
| Loan Officer | Handles the day-to-day loan process — can add and update loans, borrower profiles, guarantors, collateral and loan documents, record payments, charge penalties, and log collection contacts. Sees only the borrowers and loans assigned to them. Cannot edit or reverse a recorded payment, handle accounting, or approve loans (unless your approval settings name this role). |
| Credit Committee | Reviews loan applications and makes the final call to approve or reject them, if their institution has configured them as a required approver. Cannot create or edit borrowers, loans, or accounts themselves, and cannot manage other team members. |
| Accountant | Handles the financial side of the business — records expenses and other income, manages cash accounts and cash deposits and withdrawals, posts journal entries, and opens the financial reports. Can see loans and payments, but cannot create or edit loans or borrowers, record loan payments, or manage other team members. |
| Cashier | Works the payment desk — records loan payments and collects group meeting repayments. Can see borrowers, loans and payments, but cannot create or edit loans or borrowers, charge penalties, change or reverse a payment, or open reports, cash accounts or the team list. |
| Collections Officer | Follows up on late loans — opens the collections reports (Delinquency, Daily Collection Sheet, Collections Performance, Expected Repayments, Aging Analysis, Portfolio at Risk, Maturity, Active Loans by Officer) and logs contacts and promises to pay on a loan. Sees borrowers and loans at their branch. Cannot create or edit loans, record payments, or open the other reports. Can be configured as a required loan approver. |
| Auditor | Read access across the system for review purposes, plus Reports access. Can be configured as a required loan approver. |
| Risk Analyst | Can be configured as a required loan approver; has Reports access for portfolio risk review. |
| IT Support | Support role; can switch between branches to assist staff. |
| Viewer | Can look at information across the system for reference, but cannot add, change, or delete anything. |
What each role can do, by area
| Area | Read | Create | Update | Delete |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Borrowers | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin |
| Loans | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager |
| Groups (see Group Lending) | Everyone (a Loan Officer sees the groups assigned to them) | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin |
| Group meetings (collecting repayments) | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer, Cashier | Admin, Branch Manager | Admin |
| Documents | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer |
| Contract templates (see Admin Configuration) | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager | Admin, Branch Manager | Admin |
| A loan's contract (draft, issue, record the signed copy; see Loans) | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer (draft) | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer (issue, mark signed) | Admin, Branch Manager (void, delete a draft) |
| Payments | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer, Cashier | Admin, Branch Manager | Admin |
| Penalties | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer | Admin, Branch Manager (void) | — |
| Loan comments (the collections log) | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer, Collections Officer | — | Admin, Branch Manager |
| Cash accounts | Everyone except Loan Officer and Cashier | Admin, Branch Manager, Accountant | Admin, Branch Manager, Accountant | Admin |
| Team | Admin, Branch Manager, Loan Officer, Accountant | Admin, Branch Manager | Admin, Branch Manager | Admin |
| Expenses / Other Income | Everyone | Admin, Branch Manager, Accountant | — | Admin |
| Reports (all) | Admin, Branch Manager, Accountant, Auditor, Risk Analyst, Credit Committee, Viewer | — | — | — |
| Collections reports | The roles above, and Collections Officer | — | — | — |
| General ledger (manual journals, opening balances, the chart of accounts, period close) | Same as Reports | Admin, Accountant | Admin (reopen a closed period) | — |
| Institution settings (the Admin area) | Admin | — | Admin | Admin |
A few things worth calling out that are stricter than this table alone suggests:
- Editing or writing off a loan is limited to Admin and Branch Manager specifically, even though Loan Officers can otherwise update loans — this extra restriction applies just to those two actions on the loan detail page.
- Deleting a loan — permanently removing a disbursed loan that has no recorded payments, and everything recorded against it — is Admin only. The Loans row's Delete column above (Admin, Branch Manager) covers deleting a loan still in Draft; Branch Manager cannot delete a loan that's already disbursed.
- Recording a payment or charging a penalty is offered only to the roles listed above. Everyone else sees a loan's payment and penalty history, and a short note where the form would be.
- Reversing a payment — marking a recorded payment as reversed, with a reason — is available to Admin and Branch Manager (the same roles that can edit a payment). Deleting a payment outright, for one entered in error, is Admin only.
- Disbursement always needs Branch Manager or Admin sign-off in the normal approval flow. A Loan Officer can create and submit a loan, but it won't disburse until a Branch Manager or Admin approves it (or any other roles your institution has additionally required). The only exception is the fast-path described in Loans, which is only available to Admin or Branch Manager and only when no one else at the branch holds a required approver role.
- Branch switching in the top bar is available to Admin, Credit Committee, Accountant, Auditor, Risk Analyst, IT Support, and Viewer — not to Loan Officer, Branch Manager, Cashier, or Collections Officer, who work within their assigned branch.
Changing what a role can do
Admins open Admin → User Permissions to see a grid of every permission against every role. Tick a box to give a role a permission; untick it to take it away. Save Changes applies it to everyone who holds that role, within a few seconds, with no sign-out needed.
- Admin always has full access. The Admin column is locked on, so nobody can lock Admin out of the Admin area.
- Some rows are locked, with the reason shown when you point at them: basic reading that every staff member needs, a few Admin-only actions (such as deleting a payment, or adding team members), and anything another part of the system enforces for itself.
- A permission that depends on another turns it on too — for example, collecting group meeting repayments needs recording payments, and posting journals needs the ledger and reports. The page tells you when it does this.
- Boxes that differ from the standard are marked, and Reset puts a row, a role or everything back. Customised only lists just the differences.
- Before saving, the page asks you to confirm any change that takes a permission away from a role that has people in it, or gives a role a permission that moves money, deletes records, or shows balances.
- Last changed by… and Show recent changes show who changed what, and when.
What this page does not control:
- Which borrowers and loans someone sees. A Loan Officer sees their own; everyone else sees their branch. That is not a permission you can tick.
- Who approves loans. That is set per branch in Admin → Loan Approval.
Changing a person's role
Admins and Branch Managers can change a team member's role or login status on the Access tab of their profile (a Branch Manager can only do this for non-Admin staff at their own branch, and cannot assign the Admin role). Two protections apply:
- Nobody can change their own role or login status — ask another Admin.
- The last active Admin can't be demoted or switched off, so your institution can never lock itself out of the Admin area. Make someone else an Admin first.
The Access tab lists the most recent changes made to that person (who, what and when).