Coin Shop Employee Permissions: Who Should See What

Coin shop employee permissions should give each person only what their job needs. Counter staff sell and look up coins but do not see what you paid. Shipping staff see orders but not cost. Your bookkeeper sees cost and reports but cannot change anything. Only managers and owners delete coins, void sales, and change settings. Add a discount limit for anyone who can sell, so prices below a set floor need a manager.

That is the short answer. The rest of this guide covers why each line matters, a role table you can copy, how discount limits work with real numbers, and the mistakes that cause trouble.

Why coin shop employee permissions matter

A coin shop holds small, valuable, easy-to-move stock, and much of its margin depends on information: what you paid, what you will take, and which coins are about to go to auction. Permissions protect three things.

Your cost

If counter staff can see cost, customers will eventually hear it. "The system says you paid $300 for it" ends a negotiation at $310. Cost also tells a dishonest employee which coins have the most room to underprice without anyone noticing.

Your sales record

The ability to make a sale and the ability to erase one should not belong to the same person by default. Voiding an invoice, recording a return, and deleting a coin all remove history. When they are separate permissions, an unusual void stands out, and only a few people could have made it.

Your settings

Payment settings, marketplace connections, and integration credentials decide where money goes. Very few people should be able to change them.

A role table to copy

Most shops fit into a handful of jobs. Start from these and adjust.

Job	Sees coins	Sees cost	Sells	Voids and returns	Deletes coins	Purchases	Reports	Settings
Owner or admin	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manager	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Counter sales	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Intake	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Shipping	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Bookkeeper	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	No

Some notes on the table:

• Intake staff add and edit coins from new purchases. They do not need prices or cost to photograph and catalog a coin.
• Shipping staff need to see what sold and where it goes. They may see sale prices on packing slips. They do not need cost.
• The bookkeeper sees everything with a dollar sign and changes nothing. If the books need a correction, a manager makes it.
• Managers can do almost everything except change the business's settings, which stays with the owner.

How discount limits work

A discount limit is the most an employee can sell a coin below its asking price. It lets counter staff close ordinary deals without calling you, and it stops the large discounts that need a second look.

Worked example

Your counter employee has a 10% limit.

Asking price	Lowest price allowed (10%)	Customer offers	Result
$500.00	$450.00	$460.00	Employee can sell
$500.00	$450.00	$440.00	Needs a manager
$2,750.00	$2,475.00	$2,500.00	Employee can sell
$1,240.00	$1,116.00	$1,100.00	Needs a manager

The lowest allowed price is the asking price times (100% − limit). For $1,240.00 at 10%: $1,240.00 × 0.90 = $1,116.00.

Picking the number

Look at your typical margin. If most coins are priced 25% above cost, a 10% limit leaves room for profit on every sale the employee makes alone. A 30% limit would let an employee sell below cost. A manager, or anyone you trust with your margin, can have permission to go past the limit.

Make sure the limit applies everywhere a price can change: on the invoice, when an employee edits a coin's asking price, and on memo sales. A limit that only applies at checkout is easy to get around by lowering the asking price first.

Setting up a new employee

1. Invite them with their own login. Never share one account. Shared logins make every record say the same name.
2. Start from the closest job. Pick the preset or role that matches their work.
3. Remove what they do not need. It is easier to add a permission later than to explain why someone saw your cost for six months.
4. Set a discount limit if they can sell.
5. Check after a week. Ask what they could not do that they needed, and add only that.

Common mistakes

• Making everyone an admin. It is fast on day one and hard to undo.
• One shared login for the counter. You lose the record of who sold, voided, or changed what.
• Letting sales staff void. Separate the right to sell from the right to erase a sale.
• No discount limit. Without one, every price is negotiable down to zero.
• Forgetting reports. Reports often show cost and profit. If someone should not see cost, check that they cannot see it in reports either.
• Not removing access when someone leaves. Do it the same day.
• Forgetting the AI tools. If employees use an AI assistant connected to your inventory, it should act with their permissions, not yours.

How CoinManagerPro does this

CoinManagerPro team permissions follow the approach above.

• Roles: owners and admins have every permission. Members have only the permissions you give them.
• Presets: Manager, Sales, Staff, Intake, Shipping, Bookkeeping, Viewer, and No access. Pick one, or turn single permissions on and off. Turning one on also turns on the permissions it needs, such as View coins. A new member gets the Staff preset until you save permissions for them.
• View cost is its own permission. Without it, a member does not see a coin's cost, acquisition price, cost code, or profit, or the money in reports.
• Discount limit: a percent for each member. CoinManagerPro refuses a sale, an invoice line, or an asking price change below the limit. Members with Override discount limit can go past it.
• Separate permissions for deleting coins, voiding invoices, recording returns, managing purchases, approving stock counts, and managing settings.
• Change log: each permission change goes in the custody log with who made it and the old and new permissions.
• AI: the in-app assistant and assistants connected through the MCP server use each member's own permissions.

To set it up, go to Settings, Members, invite the person, then open their menu and choose Permissions. The member permissions help article lists every permission and what it allows.