Who should be allowed to do what in your shop system

Billing, purchasing, discounting and deleting are four different keys. A role-by-permission guide for owners, managers and counter staff in an Indian shop.

Staff should get only the permissions their job needs. In a shop system, billing, purchasing, discounting and deleting are four separate keys, and most problems start when one login holds all four. Give counter staff billing, give managers purchasing and limited discounting, and keep deleting with the owner.

Why are these four separate keys?

Each one controls a different kind of risk.

Billing creates a sale. It moves stock out and money in. Mistakes here are usually honest ones: a wrong item, a wrong quantity or a wrong GST rate picked from a list.
Purchasing creates a liability. It brings stock in and commits you to paying a party. A wrong purchase entry inflates stock on paper and can affect what you pay a supplier.
Discounting changes your margin. One generous discount a day, repeated across a month, adds up to real money, and nobody notices because each single bill looks normal.
Deleting removes history. Once a bill or a stock entry is gone, there is nothing left to check against your cash, your godown or your returns.

When one person can bill, discount and delete, they can sell something, take the cash and leave no record. That is rarely what happens, but you cannot show that it did not happen either. Separating the keys protects honest staff as much as it protects you.

What should each role be allowed to do?

The table below is a sensible starting point for a typical retail shop or small distributor. Adjust it to your business, but change it on purpose, not by default.

Permission	Owner	Manager	Counter staff
Create sales bills	Yes	Yes	Yes
Accept sales returns	Yes	Yes	With manager approval
Give discounts	Any amount	Up to a set limit	Small fixed limit only
Change item selling price	Yes	Yes, logged	No
Create purchase entries	Yes	Yes	No
Add or edit parties (suppliers, customers)	Yes	Yes	Add customers only
Adjust stock (damage, shortage)	Yes	With reason recorded	No
Cancel a bill	Yes	Yes, with reason	No
Delete a bill or entry	Yes, or switched off	No	No
View profit and purchase rates	Yes	Optional	No
View reports and day-end totals	All	Own branch or shift	Own shift only
Manage users and permissions	Yes	No	No

Two notes on the table. Counter staff often do not need to see purchase rates at all. Hiding cost prices stops awkward conversations with customers and keeps your margins private. Also, "cancel" and "delete" are separate rows on purpose, which is covered below.

How do I set discount limits that staff will actually follow?

Write the limit down and make the system enforce it. A spoken rule like "don't give too much off" means something different to every person at the counter.

A workable setup, with illustrative numbers only:

Counter staff can give up to a small fixed amount or percentage on a bill without asking anyone.
Above that, up to a higher limit, a manager approves at the counter using their own login.
Above the manager's limit, only the owner can approve.
Every discount is logged with who gave it.

At day end, look at discounts by person, not just the total. If one staff member gives far more discount than the others on similar sales, have a conversation. It may be a good reason, such as regular wholesale customers, or it may be a habit worth correcting.

Why should deleting be the rarest permission?

Because a deleted record cannot explain itself. If a bill is deleted, the stock it moved, the cash it collected and the tax it carried all stop adding up, and your accountant has nothing to reconcile against.

Prefer cancellation over deletion. A cancelled bill stays in the system, marked as cancelled, with the name of the person who cancelled it, the time and a reason. You get the same correction without losing the trail. Many owners switch deletion off entirely once cancellation and credit notes are in place.

For GST purposes, how a cancelled or corrected invoice must be handled depends on whether it has already been reported and on current rules. Check with your CA or the official GST portal rather than deleting and re-issuing. Our guide to GST invoice format requirements covers what an invoice needs to carry.

A worked example: one shop, three logins

Take an illustrative hardware shop with an owner, one manager and two counter staff.

The owner holds every permission, reviews the day-end discount and cancellation report, and is the only person who can add users or change limits.
The manager records purchases when stock arrives at the godown, approves returns and larger discounts, cancels bills with a reason, and records damaged stock. They cannot delete anything or create new logins.
Each counter staff member has their own login. They bill, add new walk-in customers and give small discounts within the limit. Returns and price changes need the manager.

One afternoon a customer returns a box of fittings. The counter staff starts the return, the manager approves it with their login, and the stock comes back with a record of who did what. Nothing is deleted, and at day end the cash, stock and bills agree.

What are the common mistakes?

One shared login for everyone. Every entry becomes anonymous. Give each person their own login, even in a two-person shop.
Giving the manager owner rights "to save time". Convenience today becomes confusion when a number does not match and nobody can tell who changed it.
Never removing old users. When someone leaves, close their access the same day.
Allowing price edits at the counter. Editing the item price is a discount by another name, without the discount log.
Treating permissions as a trust test. Roles describe jobs, not people. A trusted senior employee still does not need delete rights to do counter work.
Setting roles once and forgetting them. Review when duties change and every quarter.

When does this not apply exactly?

If you run the shop alone, you hold every role, and the main value is a clean history of your own corrections, so still prefer cancellation to deletion. If your accountant works in the same system, give them a view-and-report role and let them post adjusting entries only where you agree they should. Multi-branch businesses usually add a branch dimension, so a manager sees and changes only their own location.

If you are still on spreadsheets, role control is one of the clearest gaps. A shared file usually has no per-person limits and no reliable record of who changed a cell. Our comparison of Excel and inventory software covers that trade-off. When you evaluate a system, ask for a demo of user roles, discount limits and the cancellation log, as suggested in our guide to choosing inventory software in India.

FAQ

Should counter staff be allowed to give discounts at all? Yes, but only within a small limit you set in advance, such as a fixed rupee amount or a percentage cap on each bill. Anything above that limit should need a manager's approval at the counter. That way the customer is served quickly and you still control your margin without checking every bill yourself later.

Why should deleting a bill be different from cancelling it? A deleted bill leaves no trace, so stock, cash and tax records stop matching and nobody can say why. A cancelled bill stays in the system, marked cancelled, with who did it and when. Allow cancellation with a reason for managers, and keep true deletion with the owner, or switch it off completely.

My shop has only two people. Do I still need roles? Yes, even in a small shop. Give each person their own login, even if one of them is you. Shared logins make every entry anonymous, so a wrong rate or a missing bill cannot be traced to anyone. Two roles, owner and staff, are usually enough. The point is accountability, not bureaucracy.

How often should I review who has which permissions? Review whenever someone joins, leaves or changes duties, and do a full check every quarter in any case. Remove access the same day a person leaves. Look for leftover permissions, such as a former manager's login that is still active or a temporary discount right that was never taken back.