Assign work by client role

Client roles say who on your team does what for each client, such as the Bookkeeper, Preparer or Reviewer. You name the roles your firm uses, then put a team member in each role on a client. Job templates and automation rules can assign work to a role, so one template serves every client even when different people do the work. Client roles are part of the Pro plan; see pricing.

Set up your firm’s client roles

Owners and Admins set up the list of client roles. Open any client, find the Team card on the overview and click Set up client roles, or click Manage roles once you have some. On the Clients page, the same list is under the settings icon as Manage client roles.

Add a role by typing its name and clicking Add. Click a name to rename it, drag a role to reorder it, or delete one you no longer use. Every role you add appears on every client.

If one client needs a different person for tax work and bookkeeping work, create two roles, for example Tax reviewer and Books reviewer.

Put a team member in a client role

Open the client and use the Team card on the overview. Click the value beside a role and choose one or more team members. The change saves at once.

• Only active team members who can already open the client are listed. Holding a client role does not give anyone access to the client.
• Anyone you put in a role starts following the client, so they get its notifications. See Follow a client.
• Agent teammates cannot hold a client role.

Any team member who can edit a client can change who holds its roles.

Set a client role on many clients at once

1. Open Clients and select the clients.
2. Click Set client roles in the selection toolbar.
3. Choose the client role, then Add, Replace or Clear, and pick the team members.
4. Click Save.

A team member with restricted client access is only put in the role on the selected clients they can open.

To set roles when you import clients from CSV, add one column per client role holding team member names or emails, and map each column to that role. An existing client only gains people for a role nobody holds yet. See Add a Client.

See and filter clients by client role

On the Clients page, click the settings icon and tick a client role under Columns to show who holds it on each client. Use the Team member filter to list the clients where a person holds any client role.

Assign a Job template to a client role

Open the template under Settings > Job templates. In Assignees, on the template or on one of its subtasks, choose a role under Client roles instead of a named person.

When a Job is created from the template, each client role becomes whoever holds it on that Job’s client. This applies however the Job is created: deployed to one client or many, created by an automation rule, by an accepted proposal or a booking link, or added to an existing Job as a checklist.

If nobody holds the role on a client, that role adds nobody. A Job whose template only has client roles is then created unassigned; find these with the Unassigned assignee filter on the Jobs page.

Jobs keep the people they were given. Changing who holds a client role later does not change Jobs that already exist, and a repeating Job copies the assignees of the Job before it. See Job templates.

Assign a client role from an automation rule

In Settings > Automations, a Job rule with the Assign action can assign a client role instead of a named person. Under To, choose the role under Client roles. When the rule runs, it assigns whoever holds that role on the Job’s client.

Tick Replace current assignees to hand the Job over, for example from the Preparer to the Reviewer when the Job moves to a review status. Without it, the rule adds the role’s holder and keeps the current assignees. If nobody holds the role on that client, the rule leaves the Job’s assignees as they are. See Automate Jobs with rules.

What happens to client roles when you delete one or change plan

Deleting a client role removes it from every client, Job template and automation rule that used it. People already assigned to Jobs stay assigned.

If your workspace moves off the Pro plan, client roles and who holds them are kept but hidden, and templates and rules stop assigning them until you are on Pro again.