Finance & Billing uses two kinds of access. Staff get one of the ready-made Finance & Billing roles, and Portal permissions decide which organization contacts can view and pay their organization’s balance.
What It Controls
You give staff access to Finance & Billing by assigning one of four ready-made roles. Staff access is not controlled by individual permissions.
Separately, you choose which contact roles, such as billing contact or mailing contact, can view an organization’s financial history and pay invoices in the Portal.
Where to Find It
You assign staff roles in user administration for your Rhythm account, outside Finance & Billing. You manage Portal grants for contact roles at Finance & Billing › Setup › Contact Role Permissions.
The Settings
Ready-Made Staff Roles
| Role | Effect |
|---|---|
| Collect Administrator | Full access to Finance & Billing, including Setup |
| Power User | Broader access to everyday finance records |
| Day-to-Day User | Access for everyday finance work |
| Read Only | View records without making changes |
These four roles apply to every business unit in your Rhythm account. When you assign one of these roles to a staff member, they get that level of access in every business unit.
If a staff member gets an intermittent “access denied” or similar error when they run a Finance & Billing query, first confirm their role if you cannot reproduce the problem yourself. An Administrator or Superuser role with no app-access restrictions should be able to run the same queries you can. If you still cannot reproduce the error, ask the affected person to clear their browser cache. If the error continues, have them record their screen with the browser’s developer console open so the failed request is captured.
Contact Role Portal Permissions
Go to Finance & Billing › Setup › Contact Role Permissions to see one row for All Contacts and one row for each active contact role in your Rhythm account.
| Column | Effect |
|---|---|
| View Financial History | Contacts with this role can see their organization’s financial overview, called the Corporate Account Summary, in the Portal |
| Make Payments | Contacts with this role can see and pay their organization’s open invoices in the Portal |
Tick a box for All Contacts to give that right to every contact at every organization, no matter which specific role they hold.
If a role is marked as an administrative contact role in CRM, Rhythm automatically grants both rights for that organization. That row shows a note instead of checkboxes.
The contact assigned directly to a specific invoice can also see and pay that invoice in the Portal, even if they do not have an administrative or otherwise permitted contact role at the organization.
Dependencies and Precedence
- Only active contact roles appear. When you make a contact role inactive, it drops off this grid. If you save the grid while that role is inactive, any grant it had is removed.
- The grant follows the role, not the person. A contact gets these rights through the contact role they hold at an organization. You assign those roles in CRM; see Create or Edit a Contact.
- Open invoices appear under the organization only when they were billed there. Naming someone as a billing or administrative contact does not move an invoice billed to an individual onto the organization’s list. Only orders and invoices originally billed to the organization appear there.
- These are Portal rights, not staff permissions. Granting View Financial History or Make Payments here does not change what Finance & Billing staff can do in the Console. Staff access is controlled only by the four ready-made roles above.
Change Impact and How to Revert
Changing a staff member’s role takes effect the next time they use the Console. Changing the contact-role permissions grid replaces the full set of Portal grants at once, so if you only want to change one role’s rights, check that you have not cleared a box you meant to keep. When you save the grid, Rhythm stores exactly what is ticked.
To take back a right you granted by mistake, untick the box and save again.
Permissions
You need Finance & Billing administrator access to change the contact-role permissions grid. Whoever administers users and roles for your Rhythm account handles staff role assignment outside Finance & Billing.
Validation and Errors
If your Rhythm account has no active contact roles, the grid shows only the All Contacts row. Tick at least one of its boxes before saving, or there is nothing to save.
Related Tasks
After staff access is in place, set up your business units and accounting structure; see Business Units. Contact roles, including which ones are marked administrative, are managed in CRM; see Create or Edit a Contact. Changes made here, like other Finance & Billing settings, are recorded in your Rhythm account’s audit history.