Before signing up with Xero, it is important that you understand the various User Roles within Xero.
As a new user, you will be granted the Standard User role. As a Standard User, you are able to invite other users, and grant various levels of authority.You will be able to invite a Financial Advisor, but will NOT have the Financial Advisor role. The Financial Advisor has special priviledges and can perform certain functions that cannot be done by a Standard User.
For this reason we recommend that you sign up through a Xero Certified Partner who can act as your Financial Advisor, and assist in setting you up to get you going. You can then choose whether you go it alone or fall back on your Financial Advisor for assistance when needed.
Details of the different levels of authority are as follows:
Users with the Read Only role have access to viewing most areas of Xero but cannot edit or add any information.
You might have this role, or invite someone to have this role if someone needs to view but not edit information, such as your bank manager or a director of the company.
The Dashboard displays all financial data, but is without buttons to add invoices, expense claims or manage the bank accounts. There are only four menus available to this user (Dashboard, Accounts, Reports, Contacts) and the links to logout, My Xero and Help.
Accounts - users have view only access to all data in bank accounts, invoices, credit notes and expense claims. They cannot add new invoices or credit notes, generate statements or import invoice data.
Reports - can view and print all reports (including those with foreign currencies), and view management reports published (i.e. draft, published or archived) by a Financial Adviser; cannot notate or publish reports or access management reports that have not already been published. Can view and print manual journals via the Journal Report. View roles and functions table for reports
Contacts - can view all Contacts and view their payment history and outstanding invoice reports where applicable, but cannot make any changes, or send statements.
Fixed Assets - can view Pending Items tab and view details of Registered and Sold & Disposed assets. Can view Fixed Asset Reconciliation and Depreciation Schedule reports.
No access to bank reconciliation, budget, or any settings (including users, Chart of Accounts and conversion balances). A user with this role can be invited during the set up process but the email invitation won't be sent to them until the set up process is complete so that they only have access to the organisation in Xero and not the set up information.