2.1 Understand user roles & permissions

This article explains the roles you can assign to people in your clinic and what each one is allowed to do. Use it when you're adding a new user or changing someone's access.

Every user in Alpaca has exactly one role. That role controls which parts of the app they see and which actions they can take. Changing a user's role takes effect the next time they sign in.

New clinical hires: until you select Mark started on My Team → Onboarding, a new clinical hire can open only their Homepage, My Profile, and My Payroll, whatever their role.

Pick the role that matches what the person actually does. You can change it later from
My Team → click the person → Edit, and the change takes effect the next time they
load a page.

Which role should I pick?

The short version: HR Manager and Accountant are the two roles that cannot open
a client’s record at all. Everyone else can, to some degree. If the person should
never see clinical information, one of those two is what you want.

What each role can do

Admin

Full access to everything in your organization: clients, schedule, team, payroll,
finances and pay rates. Give this to the people who run the practice.

Assistant Admin

An Admin without the Finances page. Same client access, same scheduling, same team
management, same payroll.

Use this for an office manager or operations lead who runs the clinic day to day but
shouldn’t see revenue or payouts.

Two things to know. Assistant Admin doesn’t get Finances or Reimbursement
rates, but does still see pay rates (needed to run payroll). And a few older screens still check for “Admin” exactly, so an Assistant Admin may not see every single option an Admin does. Tell us if you hit one and we’ll fix it.

Director

Clinical leadership. Sees every client in the organization, the full schedule,
supervision dashboards, the team roster, and RBT requisitions (including creating and managing them). Can approve requests and manage clinical staff. Doesn’t get the Finances page or pay-rate editing.

Clinician

The standard role for a BCBA or clinician. Sees clients and their clinical records,
runs and signs sessions, and manages their own calendar.

Lead RBT

Like a Clinician for clinical work — sees clients, runs and signs sessions — but without
the schedule-administration tools.

Organization User

The most limited clinical role. Works with assigned clients only, and in the
“View Previous Notes” panel sees just the sessions they recorded themselves.

HR Manager

Staffing, not care. An HR Manager can:

• see My Team and open a teammate’s profile

• see the Schedule in full — every clinician and every client on the calendar, so
  they can staff sessions

• see Payroll, and their own My Payroll

• create and manage RBT Requisitions

• suspend a teammate or run a termination

An HR Manager cannot open any client’s record — not from a link, not by typing the
address. There is no Clients tab for them at all.

The distinction that matters: an HR Manager sees clients on the schedule — names,
and when their sessions are — because you can’t staff a session otherwise. Clicking one
goes nowhere: the client’s profile, documents, notes and charts are all refused. If
seeing client names on a calendar isn’t acceptable for someone, don’t give them the HR
Manager role.

Accountant

Money, not care or staffing. An Accountant can:

• see Payroll, and their own My Payroll

• see the Finances page

An Accountant cannot open any client’s record, and doesn’t get My Team or the
Schedule.

One thing to know: the Finances page lists billing rows by client name, so an
Accountant will see client names there alongside session dates and amounts — even
though they can’t open a client’s record. If that isn’t acceptable for someone, don’t
give them the Accountant role.

Full comparison

✅ full access · ⚠ limited · — no access

Changing or revoking a role

A user with the Admin role can change anyone's role from that user's profile page. The new role takes effect the next time the user signs in. To revoke someone's access entirely, suspend the account from the same profile page — suspended users cannot sign in or take any action in Alpaca.

Common questions

Can I give someone two roles?
Not in one organization — each person has one role per organization. If someone works
across two organizations, they can have a different role in each and switch between them.

What’s the difference between Admin and Assistant Admin?
Three things: the Finances page, Reimbursement rates, and My Supervision
Received. Everything else matches, and stays matched as we add features — though a
few older screens still check for “Admin” exactly, so tell us if you hit one.

HR Manager or Accountant for an office manager?
Neither, usually — if they need both staffing and finances, or need to open client
records, Assistant Admin is the better fit. HR Manager and Accountant are for people
whose work is deliberately limited to one side.

Someone says a page disappeared.
Their role changed, or they’re in a different organization than they expect. Check
My Team → the person → Edit, and have them confirm which organization is active
using the switcher in the top-right menu.

Questions?

If none of the roles fits your situation — for example, you need a role that combines parts of two of the above — contact Alpaca support. Custom permissions are not configurable per user today, but the support team can advise on the closest fit and pass requests back to the product team.