User Levels

Overview

The Merchant Portal has two user levels: Admin and User. Both can be invited from Settings → Team, and each invitee picks up the permissions of their assigned level the first time they log in.

The split is designed so that day-to-day staff can run sales without being able to change the shape of the merchant — and so that admins keep full control of stores, hardware, billing, and the team itself.

Quick Comparison

Area	User	Admin
Issue refunds, void payments, send receipts	✅	✅
Create and send payment links	✅	✅
Create / update products, inventory, images, product AI	✅	✅
Subscribe to notifications	✅	✅
Capture, cancel, or initiate payments	❌	✅
Update orders	❌	✅
Create, update, or delete stores	❌	✅
Register, move, rename, link, or delete terminals; set tips	❌	✅
Update merchant details and branding	❌	✅
Publish / unpublish / redeploy storefront	❌	✅
Manage payment methods, promotions, campaigns, gift cards, loyalty, integrations, shipments	❌	✅
Delete products	❌	✅
Unsubscribe from notifications	❌	✅
Invite and edit team members	❌	✅

👤 User (USER) — day-to-day operations

A User can do self-service and product/sales work, but not merchant administration or destructive actions. This is the right level for cashiers, store staff, and people running the shop floor.

Allowed:

• Sales — issue refunds, void a payment (including a same-day mistaken refund), email or print receipts
• Payment links — create and send them
• Products — create and update products, update inventory, upload images, use Surf AI for product copy and images
• Notifications — subscribe to alerts

Blocked: everything in the Admin-only list below.

🛡️ Admin (ADMIN) — full merchant management

An Admin can do everything a User can do, plus the operations that change the shape of the merchant or affect money movement.

Additionally allowed:

• Stores — create, update, delete
• Terminals — register, deactivate, delete, move between stores, rename, link / delink, set tip behaviour
• Payments — capture, cancel, initiate
• Orders — update
• Merchant & storefront — update merchant details, manage and delete branding, publish / unpublish / redeploy storefront
• Commerce features — manage payment methods, promotions, campaigns, gift cards, loyalty, integrations, shipments
• Products — delete
• Notifications — unsubscribe
• Users — invite and edit team members (the Users tab)

Choosing the Right Level

A good rule of thumb:

• If the person is running the till, handling customers, or merchandising products, give them User.
• If the person is responsible for the business itself — opening a new store, ordering or moving terminals, changing how you charge, or managing the team — give them Admin.

You can change a team member’s level at any time from Settings → Team. Changes take effect the next time the user reloads the portal.

Why It Matters

The two-level model is intentionally narrow: it keeps the portal simple while still protecting the operations that are either destructive (deleting a store) or sensitive (capturing or cancelling a payment, changing payout details, inviting new admins).

If you need finer-grained control — for example, restricting a User to a specific store — combine user level with per-store access, which is also configured from the Team tab.