Roles in Moss
Moss offers two primary categories of roles to manage access and responsibilities within the platform: Platform Roles and Manager/Smart Roles.
These are the foundational roles that every user is assigned, defining their general access and capabilities across the Moss platform. Each user’s platform role determines what they can do within the system. For instance, Admins have complete access to all platform functionalities, while Employees have more limited, basic permissions. Platform roles are essential for every user and dictate their overall level of access.
These are optional, specialised roles that can be added on top of a user’s platform role to provide additional permissions and responsibilities focused on managing specific areas, such as teams, departments, cost centers, or budgets. Manager/smart roles are not required for every user but are used when there’s a need for specific oversight or approval processes within the organisation. They allow for more granular control, enabling certain users to manage tasks like approving expenses or overseeing budgets.
Platform Roles
Moss provides four distinct platform roles, each with specific permissions:
Admins
Access: Complete access to all areas of the platform.
Who: Typically the CEO, CFO, or other team members responsible for expense management.
Capabilities:
Issue and freeze cards
Set spending limits
Create and manage approval rules
Approve payments
Manager other users and their roles
Manage all aspects of the platform
Internal Accountants
Access: Full access to accounting features, as well as standard user permissions.
Capabilities:
Create, edit and allocate cost centres and expense accounts
Oversee and control spend workflows end to end in line with book closing process
Send document reminders
Export all accounting-relevant transaction data via the API
Request cards and payments, which must be approved by admins or according to approval rules
External Accountants
Access: Limited to accounting features only.
Capabilities:
Perform all accounting functions available to internal accountants, except they cannot request cards or reimbursements
Employees
Access: Basic permissions for standard platform use.
Capabilities:
Request payments or cards
Upload receipts and invoices
View their card limits and details
View their transactions and categorise them
Manager Roles / Smart Roles
In addition to platform roles, Moss offers specific roles with permissions to manage certain aspects of the platform, such as expenses, teams, departments, budgets or payments:
Submitter’s Manager
What it is: The direct line manager of the employee who submits an expense.
Capabilities:
View all expenses submitted by their direct reports
Approve expenses and requests where the approval rule requires the submitter’s manager to approve
See all budgets managed by people they manage
If a submitter is also designated as the approver, the manager of the approver will be required to approve instead if 4 eyes principle has been enabled.
When to Use:
When all expenses should be monitored by the direct manager of employees
When approval thresholds are the same across teams
When employee expenses and requests should not need approval by someone other than their line manager (e.g., employees don’t incur expenses for multiple teams or projects)
How to Use:
In user management, enter the manager for each employee
Select ‘submitter’s manager’ as the approver in an approval rule
Request customer support to enable the 4-eyes principle to prevent submitters from approving their own spend
Automatically allocate the correct manager to each employee by connecting Moss to your HR software
Add employees and allocate managers in bulk by sharing a CSV for import with your CS representative
Submitter’s Manager’s Manager
What it is: The higher-level manager above the employee’s direct supervisor.
Capabilities:
View all expenses submitted by their direct reports and by anyone managed by their direct reports
Approve expenses and requests where the approval rule requires the submitter’s manager’s manager to approve
See all budgets managed by their direct reports and by anyone managed by their direct reports
When to Use:
When a higher-level manager needs to comprehensively monitor expenses
When approval thresholds are consistent across teams
When employee expenses and requests should not require approval by someone other than the line manager or their manager
How to Use:
Follow the same process as described for Submitter’s Manager but select ‘submitter’s manager’s manager’ as the approver in an approval rule
Team Manager
What it is: The manager of a specific team within Moss.
Capabilities:
View all expenses submitted by anyone in their team or allocated to their team
Approve expenses and requests where an approval rule requires the Team Manager’s approval, provided the submitter is in their team or the expense has been manually allocated to their team
See all budgets managed by members of the team they manage
When to Use:
When approval thresholds differ across teams
How to Use:
In User Management, create a Team, add users as members and assign a Team Manager
Set approval rules that include the Team Manager as an approver
Automatically create teams and assign employees to the correct team by connecting Moss to your HR software or by sharing a CSV file for import with your CS representative. Only team members can be allocated through this method; team managers must be assigned separately.
Department Manager
What it is: The manager of a department, which consists of multiple teams.
Capabilities:
View all expenses submitted by anyone in a team within their department or allocated to a team in their department
Approve expenses and requests where the approval rule requires the Department Manager’s approval, provided the submitter is in a team within their department or the expense has been manually allocated to a team in their department
See all budgets managed by any manager or member of any team within their department
When to Use:
When approval thresholds differ across teams, teams are organised into departments, and department-level oversight and approval is needed.
How to Use:
Create a department, allocate the relevant teams to it, and assign a manager to the department
Select “department manager” as an approver in approval rules
Note: Departments cannot be created via HR integration or CSV uploads; only teams can. Departments must be created and updated by admins within Moss. Users are not directly allocated to departments - only to teams.
Cost Centre Manager
What it is: The person responsible for overseeing a particular cost centre.
Capabilities:
Approve expenses and requests where the approval rule requires the Cost Centre Manager’s approval, provided the expense or request is allocated to a cost centre they manage
Note: Cost Centre Managers currently cannot view all expenses allocated to their cost centre unless they are also an approver. To provide comprehensive oversight, consider using Budgets.
When to Use:
When employees incur expenses for different cost centres, requiring approval by someone other than their line manager
How to Use:
In accounting settings, go to the Cost Centre and allocate a manager to each cost centre
Alternatively, in user management, designate certain users as the manager of a cost centre
Select “cost centre manager” as an approver in an approval rule
Cost Carrier Manager
What it is: The person responsible for overseeing a particular cost carrier.
Capabilities:
Approve expenses and requests where the approval rule requires the Cost Carrier Manager’s approval, provided the expense or request is allocated to a cost carrier they manage
Note: Cost Carrier Managers currently cannot view all expenses allocated to their cost carrier unless they are also an approver. To provide comprehensive oversight, consider using Budgets.
When to Use:
Similar to cost centres, but for different cost carriers, where employees incur expenses that need approval by someone other than their line manager
How to Use:
In accounting settings, go to the Cost Carrier and allocate a manager to each cost carrier
Alternatively, in user management, designate certain users as the manager of a cost carrier
Select “cost carrier manager” as an approver in an approval rule
Budget Manager
What it is: The manager of a budget created using Moss’s Budget Control feature.
Capabilities:
View all budgets they manage and all transactions allocated to them.
Add or remove transactions from their budget
Download a CSV file of all transactions allocated to their budget
Receive email notifications about the status of their budgets
Note: “Budget Manager” cannot be set as a “smart role” in approval rules yet. Additionally, Budget Managers cannot edit the planned amount of their budgets unless they have an admin or accountant platform role.
When to Use:
To enable budget managers to easily track actuals versus planned budgets in real-time
How to Use:
Create a budget and assign a manager to it
Payment permissions (Payer)
What is it: the Payer role is for users who need a certain level of permissions to view, prepare, or prepare and release payments.
How to use: Payment permissions can be managed only by Admin users from the Payment settings page. All Admin and Internal Accountants have by default at minimum the "View only" permission, which can be adjusted to a higher permission.
Permission | Capabilities | When to use |
View only | View everything in the Payments page | To enable team members that need to only view payment details |
Can prepare |
| To enable team members that are required to prepare and review payment runs but should not have the ability to release payments |
Can prepare and release |
| To enable team members that need to prepare payment runs and / or are required to release payments (to be paid immediately or scheduled) |
Note: to give a user "Can prepare and release" payment permission, 2FA is required by the Admin user requesting it, and a second Admin must review and approve the request due to the sensitivity of being able to release payments from the Moss wallet.