Everyone who works in GarageFlow has their own login and one role in your shop. The role decides what they can see and change: whether prices are visible to them, which jobs they see, whether they can invoice, whether they can touch the settings. People are managed under Settings → Users & Roles, and roles under Settings → Roles & Permissions.
Inviting someone
Press Invite Member, enter their name and email address, and choose a role. They get an email with a link to set a password and join the shop. The link works for seven days.
A pending invitation takes a seat on your plan straight away, the same as an active user. If you have no seats left, Invite Member is disabled until you free one or upgrade. See plans, trials and billing.
Note
There is no resend button yet. If the email goes astray, the invitation runs out after seven days, which frees its seat, and you can then invite the same address again. Until then a second invitation to that address is refused.
Changing or removing someone
Open a person from the list to change their role, their hourly cost and their Account Status.
- Inactive locks them out of the shop and frees their seat, while keeping their name on every job, time entry and note they left. Use it for someone who has left, or is away for a season.
- Remove takes them out of the shop altogether.
Hourly cost is what the person costs the shop per hour. It feeds labor cost in the profitability and technician reports and is never shown to a customer. Only people who can manage users see it.
The three built-in roles
Every shop starts with three roles. They can't be edited, so a shop always has a known starting point.
| Role | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Owner | Everything, always. It can't be changed, so a shop can never lock itself out of its own account. |
| Manager | Everything except the four that spend the shop's money, change who can get in, or reach outside the shop: managing users and roles, the subscription, the shop profile and accounting sync. |
| Mechanic | The shop floor. Their own jobs, without prices. |
What a mechanic sees
A mechanic sees only the jobs they're on: an order where they are assigned to a service, a line, or the appointment. Every price, cost and total is hidden from them across the whole app.
What they can do on their jobs needs no permission at all: mark a line complete, write notes, add tags, fill in an inspection, record tire DOT codes, clock in and out, move a card between board columns, read the calendar and look up vehicles. The Mechanic role adds one permission on top, Look up parts and adjust stock.
Writing your own roles
Included in GrowthReal shops have more than three jobs: a service writer who prices work but doesn't invoice, an apprentice who sees only their own jobs, a foreman who assigns the work. New role opens the editor:
- Give it a Role name and, if you like, a description.
- Start from a built-in role to copy its permissions, or start empty.
- Tick the permissions it should have.
Opening a built-in role and changing a box offers Create a role based on that role instead, and everyone on the original stays where they are. Duplicate on any role does the same from the list.
The permissions
They are grouped the way the editor groups them.
Orders: See every order (off means only their own jobs) · See prices and totals · Edit the order · Add and remove work · Change what work costs · Authorize work for the customer · Assign technicians · Print, duplicate and archive · Delete orders · Manage the workflow lanes.
Customers & vehicles: View customers (also whether customers appear in search) · Add and edit customers · Read and answer messages · Add and edit vehicles · Delete customers and vehicles.
Invoicing: View invoices · Invoice and take payment (also reopening an invoiced order).
Insight: See the dashboard · See reports · Reviews and campaigns · See the activity log.
Shop floor: Look up parts and adjust stock · Manage inspection templates · Book and change appointments · See everyone's hours · Correct time entries.
Shop account: Manage shop operations (rates, matrices, canned services, vendors, the scheduler, message templates) · Manage the shop profile · Manage branding · Manage users and roles · Manage the subscription · Manage accounting sync.
Warning
See prices and totals is the one to think about. Without it a person can still add a part or a labor line, but never sees what it costs or sells for. That is usually right for a mechanic and wrong for anyone who writes estimates.
A shop always keeps at least one active person who can manage users and roles, so you can't take that permission away from the last one.
Switching a role off
Deactivate a role you no longer use. If people still hold it, you're asked which role to move them to first. An inactive role can't be given to anyone until you Activate it again. A custom role can also be deleted; a built-in one can only be deactivated.
On Basic
Basic includes the three built-in roles. You can see what each one grants and assign them, but writing or changing a role needs Growth. A shop that downgrades keeps its custom roles and the people on them; they just can't be edited until you upgrade again.
Troubleshooting
"A mechanic can't see a job." They're not assigned to it. Assign them to a service or a line, or give their role See every order.
"Someone sees no prices." Their role doesn't have See prices and totals.
"Invite Member is greyed out." Every seat is taken, and pending invitations count. Set someone you no longer need to Inactive, wait for an unused invitation to expire, or upgrade.
"The invitation email never arrived." Ask them to check spam. There's no resend yet; once the seven days are up, invite them again.
"I can't change the Manager role." Built-in roles are fixed. Use Create a role based on Manager and change the copy.