Admin / Improvement

Four new staff permissions for payments
Share financial information only with the people who need it

Four new staff permissions have been released: payment settings, chargebacks, payouts, and tax documents. You can now grant each role only what the job requires, without sharing full access.

On this page
  1. What's changing (30-second overview)
  2. Illustrated: the four new permissions
  3. Before vs. after: permission comparison
  4. Setup steps
  5. 5 points developers should know
  6. 3 practical use cases
  7. One-line summary for proposals

1What's changing

Until now, giving staff access to financial information — payments, payouts, chargebacks, and tax documents — meant handing over broad account permissions.
With this release, the four permissions are broken out individually, so each staff role can be granted only what the job requires .

Before: all-or-nothing permissions

To share financial information, you had no choice but to grant near-full access, including areas irrelevant to the job.

Now: split into four

"Manage payment settings", "Manage chargebacks", "View payouts", and "View tax documents" can each be assigned to roles individually.

2Illustrated: the four new permissions

Manage (write)

Manage payments settings

Permission to manage payment settings.

Manage (write)

Manage disputes

Permission to manage chargebacks (disputes).

View (read)

View payouts

Permission to view payouts.

View (read)

View tax documents

Permission to view tax documents.

Of the four, two are "Manage" and two are "View". Permissions that change settings are clearly separated from read-only ones, so you never have to hand write access to someone who only needs to see the data.

3Before vs. after: permission comparison

ItemBeforeAfter this release
Access to payments features All-or-nothing Shared as one broad permission Granular Grant only the 4 permissions you need
Unit of assignment Share full account capabilities Assigned per permission to staff roles
Separation of view and manage Separated View and Manage are separate permissions
Availability Rolling out gradually(rolling out now)

4Setup steps

1

Open Settings

Go to Settings in the Shopify admin.

2

Users

Select Users.

3

Roles

Open a staff role under Roles.

4

Assign permissions

Check the new permissions under Permissions.

Rolling out gradually, so some stores may not see it in the admin yet. The article does not specify supported plans or countries. If it isn't showing up, check back later.

55 key points for technical teams

1. Permissions are granted to roles

Permissions are assigned to roles, not to individual staff, via Settings → Users → Roles → Permissions. Sorting out your role design (accounting, customer support, etc.) beforehand makes day-to-day operations run smoothly.

Manage View

2. Two tiers: Manage and View

Payment settings and chargebacks are "manage"; payouts and tax documents are "view". Being able to grant read-only access is the real new value in this release.

3. The rollout is gradual

It is "rolling out now", so not all stores get it at once. Before distributing manuals or internal runbooks, verify on the target store that the permissions actually appear.

API ?

4. No mention of API support

There is no mention of granting or querying these permissions via the Admin API. If you want to automate permission management, you will need to verify this separately.

5. The principle of least privilege can now be applied to financial data

Access to payments, payouts, and tax — previously an all-or-nothing grant — can now be scoped to each job function. For stores already in operation, the practical first step is auditing existing staff permissions(who currently holds the equivalent of full access) and then migrating to the new permissions.

63 practical use cases for your business

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USE CASE 1

Run monthly close with view-only access for accounting and finance teams

Challenge
Every monthly payout reconciliation and tax filing meant granting accounting staff broad admin access, with the constant risk of them touching store settings.
Solution
Grant the accounting role only "View payouts" and "View tax documents". Leave out payments settings and chargeback management.
Result
Accounting can look up payout details and tax documents on their own, eliminating one-off screenshot and export requests. The risk of accidental changes also drops.
Technical notes
Grant access via Settings → Users → Roles → Permissions. Since it's view-only, accidental settings changes are prevented at the permission level.
USE CASE 2

Delegate chargeback handling to your CS team

Challenge
Submitting evidence for chargebacks (disputed charges) is time-sensitive, yet only store owners and admins had the permissions to respond, creating a bottleneck.
Solution
Grant the CS role "Manage disputes" so CS can handle everything from first response to evidence submission. Leave out payments settings, payouts, and tax.
Result
Shorter response lead times. You can also retire shared admin accounts (shared logins).
Technical notes
What's new here is that dispute management can be carved out as a standalone permission. Write up the response workflow and distribute it together with the role.
Store Agency Partner Only the permissions they need
USE CASE 3

Limit agencies and build partners to "payments settings only"

Challenge
When outsourcing payments setup to an external partner, there was a concern they could also see financial information you'd rather keep private, such as payout amounts and tax documents.
Solution
Create a partner role and grant only "Manage payments settings". Leave out permissions to view payouts and tax documents.
Result
You can outsource payments setup without disclosing financial information, and it's easier to explain from a contract and security standpoint.
Technical notes
Once setup is complete, simply remove the permission from the role to revoke access. Designing roles per engagement (setup vs. operations) makes them reusable.

7One-line summary for proposals

"The four permissions — payments settings, chargebacks, payouts, and tax documents — have been split out individually, and
granting only the scope each job requires, role by role, without handing over full access is now possible.
Now is the time to audit how permissions are set up for accounting, CS, and external partners."