This guide is designed to help Washstacks operators make informed decisions when configuring Roles and Permissions for their teams inside the Operations module. One of the most common questions we receive during training calls is, "What permissions should I give to this role?" The answer often depends on the size of the organization, the chain of command at each location, and how much oversight you want from your corporate team. This document walks through every permission setting available in the Operations module and provides our recommendations for who should have access to what.

Washstacks uses a permissions matrix made up of five possible actions for most features: View, Add, Edit, Delete, and Reports. Not every permission area uses all five actions — some are intentionally limited based on the design of the feature. For example, the Checklists row now offers only View and Delete, and the Templates – Checklists (Global) and (Multi-site) rows offer only Add, Edit, and Delete. A few features also add extra toggles in an Additional Access area at the bottom of the permissions screen, such as Run adhoc checklists. Each section below explains what the action does, followed by a recommendation table and the reasoning behind that recommendation.

Before assigning permissions, it is important to understand what each checkbox actually does. In the Operations module, you will typically see up to five columns next to each permission row:

Where a column is left blank for a row, that action does not exist for that feature. A useful rule of thumb: when in doubt, start with less and add more. It is easier to grant additional access when an employee asks for it than it is to recover from accidentally deleted data.

Throughout this document we will reference the following general role categories. Your organization may use different titles, but the responsibilities typically map directly to these groupings:

Assets are the physical pieces of equipment at each site — tunnels, blowers, vacuums, pay stations, and the machinery your maintenance program keeps running. Accurate asset records are the foundation of your Work Order and Parts workflows, so control over who can change them belongs with the people accountable for equipment.

Assets underpin your entire maintenance program, so full access should sit with the people who own equipment: corporate management, top store management, and maintenance managers. Maintenance employees and technicians should have View (and Reports) so they can look up an asset while they work, but they should not be creating, editing, or deleting the underlying records. Other store management can have View if they need visibility into site equipment, and front-line staff generally do not need access at all.

Checklists are the backbone of daily operational accountability inside Washstacks. They cover everything from opening and closing routines to weekly maintenance and safety walks. In the current version of the platform, this Checklists row controls whether a user can see and complete the checklists assigned to them, and whether they can delete a checklist. Creating and editing checklists is now handled separately under the Templates – Checklists permissions (see sections 14–16).

Everyone who is assigned checklists needs View so they can see and complete them each day. Delete should stay with top store management and corporate management so a live checklist is not removed by mistake. To let a role actually build or change checklists, grant the Templates – Checklists permissions described in section 14 rather than anything on this row.

Ad hoc checklists (one-off checklists triggered manually) are now controlled by a separate Run adhoc checklists toggle in the Additional Access area at the bottom of the permissions screen, rather than by the old Global checklist setting. Enable Run adhoc checklists for any role you want to be able to launch a checklist on demand — typically your store management. The permissions that govern building the templates themselves (including global and multi-site templates) are covered in sections 14–16.

The Chemicals area tracks the detergents, waxes, presoaks, and other chemistry that run through your wash, along with the records tied to them. Because chemical cost and dilution directly affect both wash quality and your bottom line, control over these records should sit with the people who manage your chemical program.

Chemical inventory usually needs to be updated daily, and it is not always the top manager doing the count — often it is an assistant manager, shift manager, or team lead running the shift. For that reason, everyone at the store above the front line should have View and Edit so they can keep chemical inventory current. Add and Delete, which create or remove the chemical records themselves, should stay with corporate management, top store management, and maintenance managers, who own the chemical program and are accountable for cost and dilution. Front-line staff (CSAs/Attendants) typically do not need any access.

If your organization uses Washstacks for nightly close outs, these permissions control who can count, reconcile, and finalize the day's money. Cash handling is one of the highest-risk areas in any retail operation, so it deserves careful thought.

Anyone who has the authority to handle the daily money should be able to View, Add, and Edit a close out. That includes assistant managers, shift managers, team leads, and key holders — basically anyone who might be closing the store on a given night and needs to count and rectify daily sales. However, only the top store manager and corporate management should have Delete access. You do not want supervisors, key holders, or team leads deleting financial data, even by accident. Removing the Delete checkbox for these mid-level roles creates an important guardrail while still giving them everything they need to do their job.

The Contacts area stores phone numbers, emails, and details for vendors, service providers, and other people your team interacts with regularly. While contact data may seem low-risk, it is often the first thing employees will leak or mishandle when they leave, so it pays to limit who can edit or remove records.

Give your top store-level management and corporate management full permissions. They are the people who will be onboarding new vendors and keeping records accurate. Everyone below that level should be limited to View access only. Your team still needs to be able to look up a vendor's phone number when something breaks at 6 a.m., but they do not need the ability to change or delete that information.

The Customers area stores customer and membership records — names, contact details, plans, and account status. This is some of the most sensitive data in your account, and it is also data your front-line team touches constantly when they look up members or sign new ones up at the point of service.

Front-line staff enroll and update members every day at the point of service, so View, Add, and Edit make sense across the board. Delete, on the other hand, should be restricted to top store management and corporate management to protect customer records and preserve the audit trail — a removed customer or membership can be difficult to recover. If your attendants do not handle sign-ups or account changes, feel free to drop the lower roles to View only.

Tracking downtime is essential for understanding revenue loss, equipment reliability, and operational performance. The Downtime feature allows your team to log when the wash (or a piece of equipment) is offline so corporate can see patterns over time.

All levels of management at a store should be able to view, add, and edit downtime. There will be plenty of times when lower-level management — a team lead or key holder — is the one running a shift, and they need to be able to communicate that the site is down. Reaction time matters here, so do not block them. No one below a management level should have any access to downtime. Only top store management and corporate management should have full permissions, including the ability to delete records and view the downtime report.

Import Locations is an administrative feature intended for bulk setup of new sites in the Washstacks system. It is rarely used day-to-day.

Currently, the View and Add checkboxes for Import Locations have no functionality. Edit, Delete, and Reports are not applicable. This row may become active in a future release, but for now the recommendation focuses on the eventual intended use.

Only corporate-level management should have access to Import Locations. No one at the store level — including top managers — needs this. Bulk location imports affect the entire account structure and should be controlled tightly at the home office.

Import Parts allows users to bring in a list of parts from a CSV file rather than entering each one manually. This is a powerful feature that can quickly populate or change your parts inventory.

Just like Import Locations, only corporate-level management should have full access to Import Parts. No one at the store, including top managers, should have any access. CSV imports can overwrite or duplicate large amounts of inventory data in a single action, and that level of risk belongs at the home office.

The Library is where you store SOPs, training materials, MSDS sheets, equipment manuals, and any other reference documents your team needs. It is the central knowledge base for your operation.

All employees should have View access to the Library. The whole point of the Library is to make information accessible to everyone, so blocking visibility defeats the purpose. Only top store management and corporate management should have full access to add, edit, and delete documents. Document version control is important — you do not want five different versions of the same SOP floating around because everyone with the app can upload their own.

The Parts area tracks your equipment parts inventory — the bearings, pumps, hoses, and consumables you use to keep the wash running. Accurate parts data drives both your work order workflow and your replenishment decisions.

No one below management should have any access to anything Parts-related. Top store management, corporate management, and any maintenance managers should have full Parts access — they are the people responsible for inventory accuracy. Maintenance employees and technicians should have View access so they can look up part availability while they work on equipment, but they should not be able to add, edit, or delete inventory records. All other managers and supervisors should also be limited to View access. They may need to look up whether a part is in stock, but they do not need the ability to change inventory counts or delete part records.

Supplies typically refers to the soap, wax, towels, and other consumables that are stored at an off-site location like a home office or central warehouse. Because supplies inventory is usually managed centrally, the store-level permissions are intentionally narrow.

Anyone at the stores — management included — should only have View access to supplies. The store team needs to know what is available so they can plan and request what they need, but they should not be adding to, editing, or deleting central inventory records. Corporate or home office management should have full permissions, since they are the ones who actually receive shipments, stock the warehouse, and keep counts accurate — and they are also the right group to review the supplies report.

Supply Requests is the bridge between your stores and your home office or warehouse. When a store runs low on a consumable, this is how they ask for it. Because supply requests turn into real-world shipments and dollars, the approval and fulfillment side should be locked down.

All store management should have View access so they can see what has been requested and track its status. Top store management and corporate management should also have Add access so they can place new supply orders when their location is running low. Only corporate-level management and supply managers should have full Edit and Delete permissions — they are the people actually processing, fulfilling, and closing out supply requests. Keeping Edit and Delete restricted prevents a store from changing or removing a request after it has been submitted, which protects the audit trail between the location and the home office.

This is where checklist templates are built and maintained. In the current version of Washstacks, creating and editing checklists is controlled here — under Templates — rather than on the Checklists row itself. If a manager needs to build or change the checklists their team completes each day, this is the permission that governs it.

Template control is what keeps your daily routines consistent from shift to shift, so the ability to add, edit, and delete checklist templates should sit with top store management and corporate management. Assistant managers may be given View so they can reference the templates in use without changing them. Below that level, no access is needed — front-line staff complete checklists through the Checklists row (section 2), not here.

Global checklist templates apply across your entire account. A change here can affect every location at once, so this permission carries more weight than a single-site template. Note that this row exposes only Add, Edit, and Delete — there is no separate View or Reports checkbox.

Because a global template touches every location in your account, this permission should be reserved for corporate or home office management. A single edit or deletion here ripples out to all of your sites, so it does not belong at the store level — even with your top store managers.

Multi-site checklist templates let you build one template and assign it across a selected group of locations. This is ideal for operators who run several sites and want consistent routines without rebuilding the same checklist at each one. Like the Global row, this row exposes only Add, Edit, and Delete.

Multi-site templates are meant for people who oversee more than one location, so this permission fits corporate management and any top store managers who are responsible for a group of sites. Keep it away from mid-level and lower roles, whose responsibilities are limited to a single location — they should be working from templates, not pushing them out across sites.

Work Orders are the lifeblood of maintenance management in Washstacks. They track every repair, inspection, and improvement project across your sites. Getting Work Order permissions right is essential because this is where maintenance staff, store managers, and corporate visibility all intersect.

Top store-level managers, maintenance managers, and corporate managers should have all permissions, including Delete. Maintenance employees should have everything except Delete — they need to create and update work orders all day long, but you do not want a technician accidentally erasing a record that affects warranty tracking or compliance history. Other store management (assistant managers, shift managers) should be limited to View access so they can see what is open and plan around it, but should not be modifying work orders. Anyone below that — team leads, key holders, attendants, CSAs — should have no Work Order access at all. They are not part of the maintenance workflow and giving them access only creates noise.

As you work through your roles inside Washstacks, remember that permissions are not set in stone. You can always adjust as you learn more about how your team uses the system. The goal is to give every employee exactly what they need to do their job well — no more, no less. Too few permissions slows people down and creates frustration; too many permissions creates risk and inconsistency.

If you ever find yourself unsure whether to grant a specific permission, ask yourself three questions:

If the answer to the first two is yes and the third is "easy," grant the permission. If the recovery would be painful, hold the line and keep the permission with a more senior role.