Roles, permissions & plans

Two separate things decide what you can see and do in the CRM: your plan and your role. Your plan is the subscription for the whole restaurant — it decides which features exist at all. Your role is personal to you — it decides which of those features you are allowed to touch. A section of the CRM shows up only when your plan includes it and your role permits it. Once you understand which of the two is in play, missing menus and greyed-out buttons stop being a mystery.

Before you begin

Everyone signed in already has a plan and a role — you do not set them up, they simply apply to you. To manage other people, open Team in the sidebar. Managing the team is available on plans that include team management. Viewing your team members needs the permission to view team members; inviting people, changing their role, or removing them needs the matching team permissions. The restaurant owner has all of these by default, so if you created the restaurant you can do everything on this page. Employees only get the permissions you grant them.

Two things control access

Keep these two ideas apart and everything else follows.

Your plan (the whole restaurant)

The subscription your restaurant is on. It unlocks whole capabilities — bookings, the menu builder, analytics, loyalty, and so on — for every person in the restaurant at once. Nobody’s role can unlock a feature the plan does not include. You see and change your plan under Settings.

Your role (just you)

The set of permissions attached to your account. Two people on the same plan can see different things because they have different roles. An owner sees and does everything; an employee sees only the parts of their job. Your owner sets this when they add you to the team.

Think of the plan as the light switch for a room and your role as the key to its door. If the room has no switch (the plan does not include the feature) the lights never come on for anyone. If the room has a switch but you have no key (your role lacks the permission) the lights are on, but you cannot get in.

What your plan unlocks

Your plan is the same for everyone in the restaurant. It decides which sections exist in the sidebar in the first place. Sections that depend on the plan include:

• Dashboard and Bookings — the live floor map, reservations, waitlist, and schedule.
• Menu — the menu builder for your categories and dishes.
• Booking Page — the public page guests use to reserve.
• Customers — the guest directory built from your bookings.
• Loyalty Program — rewards for your regulars.
• Analytics — performance reports.
• Team — inviting members and, on plans with staff scheduling, planning shifts.
• Connected Devices and Activity — device pairing and the change history log.

If a feature is not part of your plan, the section either does not appear in the sidebar, or opens to a locked screen titled Feature Not Available that reads “This feature is not included in your current plan. Upgrade your plan to unlock this functionality.” Only someone who manages billing can change the plan — for everyone else the screen says “Contact your administrator to upgrade your plan.”

See which plan you are on

1. In the sidebar, open Settings.
2. Open the Billing tab.
3. Read the Subscription panel. It shows your Current plan, its price, and when it renews.
4. To change plans or update payment details, use Manage Billing.

Settings, then Billing: your current plan is what unlocks features for the whole restaurant.

Tip

Only the owner and roles allowed to update the restaurant can open Settings and see billing. If you are an employee and a whole section is missing, it is usually the plan — ask your owner which plan the restaurant is on.

What your role and permissions control

Where the plan decides what exists, your role decides what you may do with it. A role is simply a named bundle of permissions, and a permission is one specific action — such as viewing bookings, editing the floor map, or inviting a team member. When your role does not include the permission for a screen, that screen shows an Access Denied message: “You don’t have the required permissions to access this section. Please contact your organization administrator to request access.”

Eighty-Six comes with three roles you assign to people, plus the owner. They are preset — you pick a whole role for each person, rather than ticking individual permissions.

Owner

Full access to everything the plan includes — settings, billing, the team, the booking page, and every day-to-day tool. The account that first created the restaurant is the owner. There is one owner, and their role cannot be changed from the team list.

Manager

Operational, day-to-day access. A manager can open every area and update most of them, take and cancel bookings, edit and publish the booking page, and see the team — but cannot invite new people, change roles, or delete core records.

Employee

Focused access for front-of-house work. An employee can view the floor map, tables, service periods, time slots, menu, and customers, and can create, update, and cancel bookings and manage the waitlist. They do not see Settings, billing, the team list, or the booking page editor.

When you invite someone or change their role, the role picker shows each option with a short description of the access it grants, so you can choose the right level without memorising anything.

Caution

A person’s role and your restaurant’s plan combine. Giving an employee a manager role will not reveal analytics if your plan does not include analytics — the plan has to include the feature first, then the role has to allow it.

The permission areas

Permissions are grouped by the part of the CRM they cover. Each area typically carries separate actions to view, create, edit, and delete, so a role can, for example, let someone read bookings without letting them cancel any. At a high level the areas are:

• Restaurant details — the restaurant’s core profile and settings.
• Floor maps and Tables — your room layouts and the tables on them.
• Service periods and Time slots — your schedule of service windows and bookable start times.
• Bookings — reservations, with view, create, edit, and cancel actions.
• Waitlist — the queue for full time slots.
• Menus — your menus, categories, and dishes.
• Customers — the guest directory.
• Loyalty — your loyalty program.
• Orders — orders taken against bookings.
• Booking page — your public page, with view, edit, and publish actions.
• Team members — viewing people, inviting them, changing roles, and removing them.
• Organization — organization-wide details.

Worked examples

Here is how the plan-and-role idea plays out for three common people in a restaurant.

A new host who only takes bookings

Rosa runs the front desk and should manage reservations, but never touch pricing, the booking page, or the team.

1. Make sure your plan includes bookings — otherwise the reservation tools do not exist for anyone.
2. Invite Rosa with the Employee role.
3. Rosa signs in and sees Dashboard, Bookings, the Menu (view only), and Customers. She can seat guests, take and cancel bookings, and work the waitlist.
4. Settings, Booking Page, and Team do not appear for her. If she opens a direct link to one, she sees Access Denied.

The result: Rosa does her whole job without any risk of changing settings she should not.

A trusted manager who runs the floor

Sam manages the venue day to day and should handle almost everything except billing and hiring.

1. Invite Sam with the Manager role.
2. Sam can open every area, update the floor map and menu, take and cancel bookings, and edit and publish the Booking Page.
3. Sam can open Team and see who is on it — but the Add Member button and the role and remove controls are not available, because inviting and changing people is reserved for the owner.
4. If your plan does not include a feature (say, analytics), Sam still does not see it — the plan gate applies to every role, including managers.

You, running two restaurants

If your organization has more than one restaurant, your role is set per restaurant. You might be the owner of your first venue and only a manager of a second one a colleague owns. Use the switcher at the top of the sidebar to move between them; the sidebar and buttons change to match your role and plan in whichever restaurant is selected.

Managing your team

You add people, set their role, and remove them from the Team section. The owner can do all of this; a manager can view the team but not change it.

Each team member shows a status (active, pending, or suspended) and their current role.

Invite a team member

1. Open Team in the sidebar and click Add Member.
2. Fill in First Name, Last Name, and Email Address.
3. Choose a Role from the dropdown — each option shows a short note about the access it grants.
4. Decide how they get in:
   • Tick Invite by email to send them an invitation link they use to set their own password.
   • Leave it unticked to have a temporary password created for them. It is shown to you once, on screen, so you can copy it and share it securely — ask them to change it after their first sign-in.
5. Click Add Member.

Adding a member: name, email, a role, and how they receive their login.

Change a role, reset a password, or remove someone

Every team member has controls on their card in the Team list.

1. Open Team in the sidebar.
2. To change someone’s access, pick a different Role from the dropdown on their card. The change takes effect immediately.
3. For more actions, open the … menu on their card:
   • Reset password generates a new temporary password to share with them and signs them out everywhere.
   • Reset 2FA turns off two-factor sign-in for them, so they can log in with just a password and set it up again.
   • Remove from team takes away their access to this restaurant.

The per-member menu holds password reset, 2FA reset, and remove.

Note

You cannot change your own role from the list, and the owner’s role cannot be changed by anyone — this prevents a restaurant from accidentally locking itself out. A member’s status shows as active once they have joined, pending while an invitation is outstanding, or suspended if their access has been paused.

When a section is missing

If a part of the CRM you expected is not there, work out which of the two gates is closed:

• You see a locked Feature Not Available screen, or the section is absent from the sidebar entirely, for everyone in the restaurant → it is the plan. Someone who manages billing needs to upgrade under Settings, then Billing.
• You see an Access Denied screen but a colleague on the same plan can open it → it is your role. Ask the owner to give your role the permission, or to move you to a role that has it.

When in doubt, ask your owner — they hold every permission and can confirm both your plan and your role in a moment.

Related

• Core concepts & glossary
• Getting started
• Switching restaurants
• Team & scheduling
• Settings