Shopify staff permissions for inventory teams: who should be able to do what
A practical role design for brands that buy, store and ship: five roles, what each can change, why sharing the owner login is a risk, and how Stokrio handles Shopify staff.
Stokrio Team · · 6 min read
In most small brands the inventory system is run from one login that three or four people share. It works until someone changes a purchase order they should not have touched, or a seasonal packer can see supplier costs, and nobody can say who did what. Separate logins and sensible roles fix both problems.
Key takeaways
- Never share the owner's login. Give each person their own.
- Separate three kinds of power: seeing money, changing purchasing, and changing stock.
- Start new people with the least access and raise it deliberately.
- Keep a record of administrative changes, because roles are only useful if you can check them.
The roles in Stokrio
| Role | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Owner | Full control, including team, integrations and ownership changes |
| Admin | Full operational control, including team and integrations |
| Planner | Forecasting, buying, purchase orders, catalogue and production planning, with financial access |
| Warehouse | Receiving, adjustments, transfers, locations, packing and production execution, without financial access |
| Viewer | Read-only |
Two design choices are worth copying. Financial access is separate: cost, margin and value reports need it, so a packer sees stock but not what it cost. And an organisation always keeps at least one Owner: the last owner cannot be removed or demoted, even if two people try at once.
How Shopify staff fit in
On Shopify, Stokrio does not ask you to invite people by email. Anyone Shopify lets open the app is recognised by Shopify and gets their own login the first time they do, as a Viewer. The store owner then assigns roles in Settings → Team. Shopify decides who can open the app at all; removing someone in Stokrio takes away their role, but to end their access you remove them in Shopify.
A practical default for a six-person brand:
- Founder: Owner.
- Operations lead: Admin.
- Buyer: Planner.
- Two packers: Warehouse.
- Bookkeeper: Planner or Viewer, depending on whether they need cost reports.
Records you should be able to read
Roles are only as good as your ability to audit them. Stokrio records role changes, removals, invitations, API key and webhook changes, connected stores and plan changes in an audit log, with who did them and when. It is readable by owners and admins through the API today.
Scheduled emails and old access
A common leak is the scheduled report that keeps arriving after someone leaves. Stokrio re-checks recipients every time a scheduled report is sent, so removed or demoted people stop receiving it, and a financial report can only go to people who may open it.
Read more on roles and the audit log.