What your customers see and can do (customer permissions)

When a customer signs in they land on their own company's page, with the tools to create and manage orders, see their balance and credit, pay invoices and run a few reports, and nothing else. What each person can do is set by their role's defaults, then their company's settings, then their own. This article shows the customer view, explains those three layers, and lists the permissions that matter most.

Applies to: every shop. Editing permissions needs Modify permissions; saving company-level boxes also needs Add/edit companies. Hijack is for administrators (Administer the entire site).

In this article

• Where customers land and what they see
• Reports customers have
• How customer permissions work
• What new sign-ups start with
• Customer permissions that matter most
• See what a customer sees
• Things to know

Where customers land and what they see

A customer, individual or vendor who signs in lands on their own company's page (the breadcrumb says Your Company); employees land on their time card. The customer's menus are intentionally stripped down for easy navigation, not the employee menus you see.

On their company page they can:

• Create or import orders, and create bids, from the order page.
• See their balance strip: Outstanding Balance, Amount Due Shipped and Past Due, with Payment Term, Credit Available, Credit Limit and Credit Limit Remaining underneath.
• See outstanding invoices with pay boxes and Quick Pay, when they hold Make Payments and your online payments are on. If a customer can't pay, see My customer can't pay or can't place an order.
• See their orders, contacts and subscriptions.

They don't see your notes about them, the role list or remote B2B invoices, and attachments are read-only for them.

Reports customers have

With View reports, a customer company's contacts get these reports by default: Customer Product History, Resource Allocation Report, Shipping Report, View Invoices Report (their invoice history) and View Transaction Report. An individual account gets Customer Product History and Shipping Report. Each report is its own permission.

How customer permissions work

Every permission can be set for a whole company and again for one person. Each box has three states:

• Allow (a tick): granted at this level.
• Deny (a cross): refused at this level.
• Blank: inherit from the level below.

A person's own setting beats their company's, and the company's beats the role default. So blank is not "off": if the role or the company gives a permission, a blank box on the person leaves it on. To take a permission away from one person, set Deny on their contact.

A box missing from the editor means none of the company's roles offers that permission. Customers hold Modify permissions by default, so a company's main user can change permissions for the other people at their company. Administrators on your side (Administer the entire site) pass every check, and a Deny has no effect on them. The same Allow and Deny model applies to your employees; see Employee permissions guide.

Worked example: the Customer role gives Submit Orders and the company has no override. A sign-up contact carries an explicit Allow from sign-up, so Deny on the company leaves them able to submit (their own Allow wins), and Deny on the contact stops them.

What new sign-ups start with

Can you set the default permissions for new sign-ups, for example to stop everyone from placing orders when they first sign up? No. They are set automatically: sign-up writes an explicit Allow, on the new contact and on its company, for every permission its role can hold. So changing the company's boxes afterwards doesn't restrict that person, because their own Allow wins. To restrict a self-signed-up customer, change the boxes on their contact.

The usual way to handle sign-ups is a trigger that has someone in your company call or email each new sign-up to verify who they are and give them ordering information. Even if they place an order the moment they sign up, you can avoid verifying that order until someone has made contact with them. The steps, and the stricter option of a Deny on Submit Orders, are on Review new sign-ups and keep fake accounts out.

Customer permissions that matter most

Defaults for a company added by hand; "On" means the role grants it unless the company or person says otherwise.

The Customer role holds 16 defaults and the Individual role 9; the table is the full list. A customer never sees another customer's orders, invoices or contacts.

See what a customer sees

An administrator can open a customer's contact and use Hijack, which opens the app as that person. Every use is recorded; log out and you're back in your own session. It's the quickest way to check a price adjustment, an exclusive category or a permission change before telling the customer it's done.

Things to know

• Three things must be on for a customer to sign in: their contact is Active, their company is Active, and Allow this person to log in is ticked on the contact. Otherwise they see an "inactive or deleted" message. See Edit, deactivate, merge or delete customers.
• Customers see Company Permissions boxes on their own company that don't save. Only your employees with Add/edit companies can save company-level boxes.
• View/Edit All Orders is about their own company. A contact sees orders placed by their colleagues, never other customers' orders.

Related articles

• Review new sign-ups and keep fake accounts out
• Guide: Customers in Allmoxy
• Employee permissions guide
• How pricing works