Users and roles

Creating an entity makes you its Admin — on production that happens when you onboard your company through the FTA. The other three roles only ever arrive by invitation from an Admin or an Editor of the entity, and an invitation never offers Admin.

The same role also decides what an OAuth app you own can do on the entity through the API. Both are covered together on Roles and permissions.

The two rows that matter most are the last two. Everything else an Admin does, an Editor does too — seeing who has access, inviting people, changing their roles and removing them, other Editors included — but an Editor can never change or remove an Admin, or delete the entity. That is what stops control of an entity being handed on, or taken away, by someone who was merely given access to it. Approvers and Viewers do not see who else has access, or who has been invited.

These rules are applied to every request, not only to the buttons. Where your role does not allow something, the screen still shows it — switched off, with a note naming the role that can — so you can see the feature exists and know who to ask rather than wondering where it went.

The Admin is whoever created the entity. There is no separate step to become one — creating the company makes you its Admin, and with it comes full access to entity details, the ERP connection, PINT Mapping, tax codes, invoices and people.

An Admin manages people together with the entity's Editors, but anything involving another Admin is the Admin's alone: only an Admin can change or remove one. Invitations offer Editor, Approver or Viewer — the Admin role is not handed out. Deleting the entity is Admin-only for the same reason. An Admin also inherits every action the other roles have, so nothing on the entity is ever blocked on someone else being available.

An entity can have as many Editors as it needs. An Editor works on the entity exactly as the Admin does — connecting the ERP, completing the mapping, configuring tax codes, filling in staged invoices, approving, and seeing, inviting or removing people (other Editors included) — with one boundary: an Editor cannot change or remove an Admin, and cannot delete the entity. When an Editor invites someone, the roles offered are Editor, Approver and Viewer.

An Editor does not need a TaxStar account beforehand. Invite them by email; if the address already has an account they sign in and accept, and if it does not, accepting creates one for them (see Accounts created by an invitation below). Either way they have access to the entity once they accept — not before.

Where your finance process needs a second pair of eyes, the entity can require invoices to be approved before they go to the Peppol network. Approvers are the people who give that approval, and an entity can have several of them. They are invited by an Admin or an Editor through the same email invitation — but an Approver does not need a TaxStar account. The invitation opens a confirmation page, and pressing Accept invitation is all there is to it.

From then on, each invoice waiting for approval sends them an email with their own secure link. It opens the invoice — lines, tax and totals — and they approve, reject or comment right there. The link works for 7 days, closes as soon as anyone decides the invoice, and stops working if they are removed from the entity or made a Viewer. An Approver who also has an account can use Invoices to Approve in the dashboard instead; the decision is the same.

That list is deliberately the whole of it. An Approver can read the entity but change nothing else about it — not the TRN, not the connection, not the mapping, not the tax codes — and cannot send, email or upload an invoice either. The role is to decide, not to operate, which is what makes it safe to give to someone outside the finance team whose only job is to say yes or no.

A Viewer sees what an Admin sees and changes none of it: the invoice list and each invoice's detail, the reports, the connection, the mapping and the tax codes. Every control that would change something is switched off for them, and they do not see who else has access or who has been invited.

It is the right role for an auditor, an external bookkeeper, or a colleague who needs to answer questions about what was filed without being able to alter it. A Viewer cannot approve invoices — if the person is meant to sign off, they need Approver.

The flow always ends with the invited person agreeing to it:

1. An Admin or an Editor invites someone by email and picks their role — Editor, Approver or Viewer.
2. They receive an invitation link, valid for 24 hours.
3. Editor or Viewer with an account: they sign in to TaxStar with the invited email address, then open the link.
4. Editor or Viewer without an account: the link opens a confirmation page. Pressing Accept & create account creates their account — there is nothing to fill in — and emails them their sign-in email and a temporary password. They sign in, enter the one-time code sent to the same address, and set a password of their own.
5. Approver: no account needed. The link opens a confirmation page with an Accept invitation button.
6. Until they accept, they appear as invited and can see nothing of the entity. Opening the link alone never accepts an invitation that is confirmed on a page, and never creates an account — mail scanners open links too.
7. On acceptance they get exactly the access their role carries, on that entity.

A role can be changed later, and access can be taken away, from the same place it was granted. Both take effect immediately.

When an Editor or Viewer invitation goes to an email address that has no TaxStar account, accepting it creates one. That account works like any other, with one difference.

• It can work on any number of companies. Other companies can invite the same address in the usual way; the person signs in and accepts, and gets exactly the role each invitation carries. Every company they belong to is listed in their dashboard.
• It cannot create a company of its own. The option to create a company is not offered to it, and the platform refuses it on every route — the dashboard, an import, an OAuth app and the API.

To add a company of your own, onboard it through the FTA with the same email address. The onboarding creates the company with you as its Admin, and from then on the account is an ordinary one: the companies you were invited to keep your access exactly as it was. TaxStar support can also lift the limit — contact support@taxstar.app.

The Roles & Permissions card on an entity's page tells you when your account is one of these.

Approval is one of the two points where a person steps into an otherwise automatic flow; the other is a staged invoice. Both are on Sending invoices. The entity itself, and the details it is created with, are on Set up your account.