Roles and permissions: give less, and give it to individuals
A shared login makes every future question unanswerable. Individual accounts with the narrowest workable permissions cost nothing and change what you can find out.
4 min read
Rule one: one login per person
Not per role, not per till. Per person.
A shop with a shared "cashier" login has given up the ability to answer every question that matters: who voided that sale, who applied that discount, who was on the till when the variance appeared.
The usual objection is speed — logging in takes time. The answer is a PIN rather than a password, and a screen that returns to the login after a few idle seconds. That is two seconds per shift change and it buys accountability forever.
If your system charges per user, that pricing is pushing you towards shared logins, and it is worth weighing that against the alternative. SeePOS pricing.
Rule two: least privilege
Give each person the narrowest set of permissions that lets them do their job. Not because you distrust them — because a permission nobody needs is a permission that can only cause problems.
This also protects staff. A cashier who cannot issue a refund cannot be pressured into issuing one, and cannot be suspected of having issued one.
The permissions that actually matter
Most systems offer dozens. These eight do the work:
| Permission | Give to |
|---|---|
| Issue refunds and credit notes | Supervisor and above |
| Void after payment selected | Supervisor and above |
| Apply discount above X% | Supervisor and above |
| Override a price | Manager only |
| Adjust stock | Manager only, and not the person who counted |
| View cost prices and margins | Manager and owner |
| Open the drawer without a sale | Cashier, but logged with a reason |
| Change product prices | Manager and owner |
Cost prices deserve special mention. Many shops give everyone access without thinking. Your cost prices are your supplier terms, and a departing employee who knows them takes something valuable.
A workable four-role setup
Cashier. Sell, take payment, open the drawer with a reason, apply discounts to a small ceiling. No refunds, no voids after payment, no cost prices.
Supervisor. Cashier, plus refunds, voids and larger discounts. Can close a shift. No price changes, no stock adjustments.
Manager. Supervisor, plus price changes, stock adjustments, cost prices, and staff management for their branch.
Owner. Everything, plus multi-branch views and the permission to change permissions.
Four roles cover almost every shop. If you find yourself creating a ninth role, you are probably solving a staffing problem with software.
Approval without sharing passwords
Covered inpreventing till theft, and worth repeating: a manager who types their password at the till in front of staff has given away their access.
Use a manager PIN, a card, or approval from the manager's own device.
The audit log
Permissions without a log are half a control. You need a record of:
- Logins, with device and time
- Price changes: old value, new value, who, when
- Permission changes: who granted what to whom
- Refunds, voids and stock adjustments with their approver
- Data exports
The most important entry in any audit log ispermission changes, because that is how someone quietly gives themselves access. Review it monthly; it takes two minutes.
Multi-branch
Two additional rules once you have more than one location:
- Branch scope. A branch manager sees and acts on their own branch only.
- Transfers need both ends. The sending branch raises, the receiving branch confirms. One person doing both removes the control. Seetransfers.
The review
Once a quarter, list every user and ask three questions:
- Does this person still work here?
- Do they still do the same job?
- Does the permission set still match?
Leavers who still have accounts are the most common finding, and the easiest to fix.
Wameed provides per-user accounts, granular permissions, branch scoping, manager PIN approval and a full admin activity log; seesecurity.
- #permissions
- #صلاحيات
- #roles
- #أدوار
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