One person, one login
A shared till login makes every other control useless. If five people use 'cashier1', a refund at 9:47 pm could be any of them. Give each person their own login and a short, private PIN or password, and make logging in part of starting a shift. It also makes sales-by-staff and tip reports meaningful.
Build roles around real jobs
Do not set permissions person by person. Create roles that match the jobs in your business, assign people to roles, and change the role when someone is promoted. A typical set is cashier or server (sell, take payment, hold orders), shift manager (all of that plus refunds, voids, discounts and closing the register) and owner or admin (everything, including settings and reports).
Start strict and loosen as needed. It is easier to grant a permission when someone asks than to take one away after a problem.
The actions to lock
A short list covers most risk: refunds, voids and deleted lines, price overrides, discounts above a small limit, opening the drawer without a sale, cash pay-outs, editing completed sales and changing settings. Some businesses also limit who can see cost prices and profit reports.
Locking an action does not have to slow the counter. Manager approval lets a manager enter their own password on the cashier's screen for that one action, so the cashier never learns the manager's login and the log shows both names.
Review and offboard
Once a week, look at refunds, voids and discounts by user. A pattern stands out quickly: one person with three times the refunds of everyone else, or voids clustered at the end of a shift. When someone leaves, deactivate their login the same day.
Doing it in SeroPOS
Permissions are set per role, in the app for the till and in the back office for the web screens. Standard includes 3 users and Pro 5, and you can add 3 more users for $10 a month.
- In the app: Admin, then Users & Roles. Each user has a login username, role, locations and an active switch; the hand-over card shows their login details to copy.
- Roles have a name, a Service staff switch (can be a waiter) and App access. The POS Access tab groups Sales & Transactions, Checkout Buttons (Clear, Adjust, Hold, Delivery, Split, Print Bill), Payment Types (Cash, Debit, Credit, Other), Admin Sections and Device & Setup.
- New roles start locked: only the owner has everything until you grant it.
- A locked action shows a lock badge. Tapping it opens Approval Required, where any Admin or Manager password approves that action once.
- In the back office: User Management, then Users sets location access and a maximum sales discount percentage per user; Roles sets web permissions such as refunds, drafts and viewing purchase prices.
- Two-step verification (authenticator, text-message code or passkey) is available at sign-in, and Reports, then Activity Log shows who did what.