Admin role guardrails

Overview

The Admin role is designed to run the back office on behalf of the Business Owner. By design, a small number of sensitive actions are not available to Admin so that financial sign-off and field execution stay with the right roles. This article is the single-page summary you can keep open as a new Admin user.

Who This Workflow Is For

Any user assigned the Admin role. New Admin users should read this article before starting day-to-day work so the boundaries are clear from the start.

Before You Start

You need to be signed in to a MyApprentice account with the Admin role. If you are unsure of your role, open Users in the left sidebar and find your own row — the Role column shows your role.

What Admin cannot do

Below is the confirmed list of actions Admin cannot perform, the role(s) that can perform each, and where to go in MyApprentice if you need one of them done.

1. Finalise or complete a job

• Who can. Business Owner and Supervisor.
• Why. Job completion locks the job for invoicing. Sign-off rests with the Business Owner or the Supervisor on site.
• What Admin can do instead. Create and edit the job, add internal notes, add Job To-Do’s, schedule shifts, and share details with the client via the portal. Ask the Business Owner or Supervisor to finalise once the work is done. See Add Job To-Do’s and internal notes and Share job details with the client.

2. Clock in or clock out

• Who can. Business Owner, Supervisor, Tradie, and Apprentice (the roles that perform field work).
• Why. Admin is a back-office role, not a field role.
• What Admin can do instead. Approve and unapprove submitted timesheets, and review submitted hours before payroll. See Review and approve a timesheet.

3. Export payroll

• Who can. Business Owner, Supervisor, and Finance.
• Why. Payroll export touches pay-rate data that Admin does not have access to.
• What Admin can do instead. Approve/unapprove timesheets so they are ready for payroll. Once approved, ask a Business Owner, Supervisor, or Finance user to run the export.

4. Delete an invoice

• Who can. Business Owner only.
• Why. Deleting an invoice changes a financial record. The action sits with the Business Owner.
• What Admin can do instead. Create, edit, send, and mark invoices paid. To cancel an invoice, ask a Business Owner or Supervisor. To delete an invoice, ask the Business Owner — only the Business Owner can permanently delete a financial record.

5. Delete the Business Owner record

• Who can. Only another Business Owner can. There is one Business Owner per business in MyApprentice.
• Why. It is the senior account. Admin can delete other users (Supervisor, Finance, Tradie, Apprentice, other Admin) but not the Business Owner.
• What Admin can do instead. Use Delete or restore a team user for any other role.

6. Be selected as a shift assignee

• Who can be a shift assignee. Business Owner, Supervisor, Tradie, Apprentice.
• Why. Admin is a back-office role. Finance is also non-schedulable for the same reason.
• What Admin can do instead. Admin can assign other workers to shifts, edit, reassign, delete shifts, and view the schedule board. See Schedule a shift and Edit, reassign, or delete a shift.

7. See staff cost-rate fields

• Why. Staff cost rates and hourly rate fields are restricted to senior roles.
• What Admin can do instead. Admin can view and edit other user fields (name, role, contact details) and can invite/delete users; cost-rate fields are not shown to Admin. The Business Owner manages cost rates.

8. Self-escalate your own role

• Why. Admin cannot edit their own user record to gain a higher role (for example, change themselves to Business Owner). This is a deliberate guardrail.
• What Admin can do instead. Edit other users’ roles (any combination among Supervisor, Admin, Finance, Tradie, Apprentice). Your own role can only be changed by a Business Owner.

9. View Document History

• Who can. Business Owner only.
• Why. Document History is the business-wide audit log and is reserved for the Business Owner.
• What Admin can do instead. Day-to-day record audit is via the affected record itself (open the quote, invoice, job, or client to see the current state). To restore a deleted record or view the full audit trail, ask the Business Owner.

What Happens Next

Day to day, you operate inside these guardrails without thinking about them — most Admin work runs cleanly. Where you hit a guardrail, the relevant Who can do this instead above tells you which role to ask. Cross-link the Admin Role Index and the Admin Role overview for the wider Admin scope.

Common Issues

• A button or option is greyed out for you. Confirm against the list above. If the action sits with a different role, ask that role to perform it. If you believe Admin should have access, ask the Business Owner to confirm.
• Trying to schedule yourself as the worker. This is intentional — Admin is non-schedulable. Assign the Business Owner, Supervisor, Tradie, or Apprentice instead.
• Cannot see Document History in the sidebar. Document History is Business Owner only; you will not see it as an Admin.
• Cannot see hourly rate fields on a user. Cost-rate fields are not shown to Admin. The Business Owner manages those.
• Need a Business-Owner-only action urgently. Reach out to the Business Owner. There is no Admin override for these guardrails.

Related Guides

• Admin — Role overview
• Admin — Help Centre Index
• Edit a user or change a role
• Schedule a shift
• Review and approve a timesheet
• For wider Business Owner scope, see Business Owner — Role overview.