After an ecommerce staff member changes roles, review access as a controlled business change rather than simply adding the new role. Inventory every store, location, point-of-sale profile, app, channel, device, and high-risk permission; define what the new job needs; remove obsolete access; and verify that the employee can work without retaining authority from the old position.
Define the change
Record the effective date, old duties, new duties, manager, access administrator, stores and locations affected, and any transition period. List tasks the person must continue, start, and stop. Translate those tasks into actions such as viewing orders, editing products, issuing refunds, changing discounts, exporting customer data, managing staff, viewing financial reports, or changing payment settings.
Do not copy the previous employee's access as a shortcut. A useful baseline comes from the new job, not from whichever account appears similar.
Inventory every access path
Review the ecommerce administrator, point-of-sale system, payment provider, fulfillment platform, shipping tools, support desk, marketing apps, analytics, domain and DNS provider, business email, and shared devices. Record the account name, role, location scope, app access, login method, device sessions, and business owner. Include collaborator and partner access where applicable.
Shopify lets eligible administrators assign roles, remove roles, edit store access, suspend a user, and revoke a device or application's access from the user record (Shopify user management). Shopify also notes that multiple assigned roles produce cumulative permissions, so checking only one visible role can miss access granted by another.
Square assigns team members a permission set and specific locations, and the selected locations determine which location data and features they can access (Square team management). These platform differences are why the review should record effective access, not just a role label.
Build a before-and-after matrix
For each task, list the old access, required new access, proposed change, approver, and test. Separate ordinary operating permissions from high-impact permissions such as user administration, payment configuration, payouts, refunds, gift cards, customer exports, app installation, domain changes, or full financial reporting.
Shopify describes roles as job-based collections of granular permissions and allows multiple roles whose permissions accumulate (Shopify roles). Review all assigned roles, groups, stores, and app permissions together. On platforms that use a single permission set, verify the location scope and any separate authorized-representative or administrative designation.
Change access in a safe order
If the role change is immediate or risk-sensitive, remove obsolete high-impact access first while preserving a separate administrator who can recover the account. Then add only the permissions needed for the new tasks. For a planned transition, document a short overlap window and its expiration rather than leaving both roles indefinitely.
Revoke old device sessions when the person no longer controls a device or application. Replace shared passcodes with individual access where the platform supports it so actions remain attributable. Do not exchange passwords or recovery codes during the handoff.
If access to payouts, banking, tax, identity, or legal ownership must change, route that work to the authorized owner and follow the platform's verification process. A staff-role review is not authority to transfer business ownership or alter financial accounts.
Verify retained work and removed authority
Have the staff member perform representative new duties with test or low-risk records. Confirm that required stores, locations, products, orders, apps, and reports are available. Then test that an obsolete function is no longer accessible. Check active sessions, devices, POS passcodes, app permissions, and collaborator access separately when the platform exposes them.
Review the audit log or recent activity after the change. Confirm that no automation or integration was using the person's former login before disabling it. If a personal account powered a business integration, move the integration to an approved business identity through a separately tested change.
Close the review
Record the final roles, stores and locations, app access, revoked sessions, test results, approver, and completion time. Schedule a follow-up after the transition window and remove temporary access. Re-run the review after another role change, departure, new store, new payment tool, or major app installation.
Completion check
The change is complete when the employee can perform the new role, obsolete permissions and locations are no longer available, high-impact access has a documented owner and approval, sessions and devices are accounted for, integrations still run under approved identities, and the final effective access is saved as evidence.
Sources
- Managing users from your Shopify admin — Shopify Help Center
- Roles — Shopify Help Center
- Add and manage team members — Square Support Center