Understanding user roles and permissions

Every account has exactly one role within a firm. The role is recorded against the account on the server, and every request is checked against it there — not by hiding buttons in the browser. Somebody who guesses a URL still gets refused.

The three roles

Client. The people you work for. A client sees the documents in their own account and nothing else: no other client’s files, no firm-wide folder tree, no user list. They can upload, download what they have been given, read and send messages, and sign what is sent to them for signature.

CPA. The people who do the work. A CPA sees the firm’s documents and folders, uploads and files documents, invites clients, assigns work, and requests signatures. This is the role most of your staff should have.

Admin. Everything a CPA can do, plus the firm’s own configuration: organization settings, the user list, and billing.

What a client genuinely cannot reach

This is the question clients ask most often, so it is worth being precise. A client’s request is narrowed to their own records before it reaches the database. Another client’s documents are not merely hidden from the screen — they are never fetched.

The same is true between firms. Two firms using Pertavo cannot see each other’s anything.

Changing somebody’s role

An admin can change a role from Users. Two things to know first:

• Changing a role changes what that person can see the moment they reload. It does not move or delete anything they have already uploaded.
• Demoting the only admin leaves the firm with nobody who can reach organization settings or billing. Promote the replacement first.

Roles and invitations

An invitation carries a role with it — you decide whether you are inviting a client or a CPA at the moment you send it, and the person who accepts gets exactly that. They cannot pick a different one on the way in. See Inviting clients and team members.

Beyond the role

Roles decide what kind of work somebody does. Two narrower controls decide which particular things they touch: folder permissions and per-document sharing. Both are covered in Access control and permissions.