Every person you add to your vehReports account gets a role, and the role decides what they can see and do. There are four to choose from — Owner, Manager, Inspector and Billing — and this article explains exactly what each one can and can't do, so you give people the right level of access from the start. Roles are about access, not about cost: building drafts, running licence checks, looking up vehicles and editing templates are all free for everyone. Only signing off a report or signing a rental agreement uses a credit, and that's the same whoever does it.
What roles are there?
There are four roles, each suited to a different job:
- Owner — full access to everything, including billing and the ability to transfer ownership of the account.
- Manager — runs the day-to-day work; can do almost everything operational and can view credits, but can't manage billing or buy credits.
- Inspector — focused on work in the field: inspections, rental agreements and licence checks. No billing access at all.
- Billing — looks after the money: buying credits, top-ups, orders and invoices, plus read-only sight of reports and agreements.
You choose a person's role when you invite them, and you can change it later at any time. For the how-to of inviting, resending, changing and removing people, see managing your team.
What can the Owner do?
Everything. The Owner has the highest level of access and there's normally one Owner per account — usually the person who set the company up.
An Owner can:
- Create, edit and delete reports, rental agreements, licence checks, customers, vehicles and your templates (inspection templates and rental agreement templates).
- Sign off reports and sign rental agreements.
- Manage the team — invite people, change roles, remove members and resend or revoke invitations.
- Handle all of billing: buy credits and top-ups, choose or change a subscription, update card details and view invoices and orders.
- See the full credit balance and history.
- Set up API access and webhooks.
- Edit the company profile, settings and branding.
- Request a full data export and start account closure.
- Transfer ownership to another team member. When ownership is transferred, the previous Owner becomes a Manager — they don't lose their place, they simply step down from billing and ownership control.
In short, anything in the app that another role can't do, the Owner can.
What can a Manager do?
A Manager runs the operation day to day without touching the money. This is the right role for a depot manager, fleet supervisor or office lead who organises the work but isn't responsible for paying the bills.
A Manager can:
- Create and update reports, rental agreements, licence checks, customers, vehicles and your inspection and rental agreement templates.
- Sign off reports and sign rental agreements.
- View the credit balance and history, and view orders — so they always know how many credits are left — but they can't buy credits or manage billing.
- Use the team activity log.
- Request a data export.
A Manager cannot:
- Buy credits, change the subscription, update card details or access invoices.
- Manage the team (invite people, change roles or remove members).
- Delete records the way an Owner can.
- Edit the company profile, settings or branding.
- Set up API access or webhooks.
So a Manager sees the credit balance and can flag when it's running low, but topping up is down to the Owner or the Billing role.
What can an Inspector do?
An Inspector is built for the people doing the work — out at the vehicle, on a phone or tablet. It's the simplest role and deliberately keeps billing completely out of view.
An Inspector can:
- Create and complete inspection reports, including marking damage, capturing walkaround photos and signing off (which uses a credit).
- Create and complete rental agreements and take them through handover, return and close.
- Run driver licence checks from a customer record or inside an agreement.
- View customers, vehicles and templates so they have everything they need to do the job.
An Inspector cannot:
- See any billing information at all — no credit balance, no orders, no invoices.
- Add or edit vehicles, customers or templates (they can view them but not change them).
- Manage the team or the company settings.
Because an Inspector never sees billing, you can hand the role out freely to field staff and casual inspectors without worrying about them stumbling into card details or the credit balance. They can still sign off work — signing off uses a credit from the shared company balance, and the Inspector simply won't see the running total.
What can the Billing role do?
The Billing role looks after the money and nothing else operational. It's ideal for a finance contact or bookkeeper who needs to keep credits topped up and pull invoices, but who never carries out inspections.
The Billing role can:
- Buy credits and manage top-ups, packs and subscriptions.
- View and manage orders and the credit history.
- View invoices and the company details needed for billing.
- View reports and rental agreements (read-only) — useful for reconciling spend against work done — without being able to change them.
The Billing role cannot:
- Create or edit reports, agreements, customers, vehicles or templates.
- Sign off a report or sign an agreement.
- Run licence checks.
- Manage the team.
In other words, Billing is read-only on the operational side and full-control on the money side — the mirror image of the Inspector role.
How do credits and roles work together?
Credits are shared across the whole company, not held per person. There's no per-role spending limit and no separate balance for each member — everyone draws from the same pot.
What changes by role is who can see the balance and who can refill it:
- Owner and Billing can both see the balance and buy more credits.
- Manager can see the balance but not buy credits.
- Inspector can neither see nor buy credits.
Remember that almost everything is free regardless of role — licence checks, DVLA and MOT lookups, adding vehicles and customers, building and previewing drafts. Only signing off a report and signing a rental agreement cost a credit (£1 each), so the credit balance only moves when work is finalised. If you're new to this, understanding credits explains what's paid and what's free.
What happens if we run out of credits?
The same thing for everyone, whatever their role: you can carry on building drafts, running licence checks, adding records and getting work ready — the only action that's blocked is sign-off. The draft is saved, and you're prompted to top up. Topping up has to be done by an Owner or the Billing role, so if an Inspector or Manager hits the wall, they'll need someone with billing access to add credits before the report can be signed off. New accounts start with about 10 free welcome credits, so this usually won't come up straight away.
Which role should I give someone?
A quick rule of thumb:
- The person who pays the bills and runs the business → Owner (keep this to one or two trusted people).
- A depot or office manager who organises work but doesn't handle payments → Manager.
- Field staff, valeters, mechanics and casual inspectors → Inspector.
- A finance contact, bookkeeper or accountant who only deals with credits and invoices → Billing.
If in doubt, start people on the least access they need to do their job — you can always change their role later in a couple of taps.
Can someone have more than one role?
No — each team member has a single role at a time. If a person genuinely needs both full operational control and billing, the role for that is Owner. Most teams find the four roles cover every real-world combination without anyone needing to double up: a Manager runs the work and watches the balance, while an Owner or Billing contact handles the actual top-ups.
Can I change someone's role later?
Yes. Roles aren't fixed — you can change anyone's role at any time from the Team area under Settings, and the change takes effect immediately. A common pattern is moving an Inspector to Manager when they take on more responsibility, or moving a Manager to Billing when their job shifts to finance. Full steps are in managing your team.
How do I make someone the new Owner?
Use transfer ownership from the Team area. Pick the team member who should take over; they become the Owner with full access including billing, and you (the previous Owner) automatically become a Manager. This is the right step when you're handing the business over, leaving the company, or simply want billing handled by someone else. Only the current Owner can transfer ownership, and there's always exactly one Owner afterwards.
Do roles affect what's on the customer-facing report or agreement?
No. Roles only control what your team members can see and do inside the app. What your customers receive — the signed PDF, the emails, the branding (logo, colours, sender name and footer) — is the same regardless of who carried out the work. The inspector's name still appears on the report they signed off, but that comes from the sign-off itself, not from their role.
Do roles control the API and webhooks?
Yes. Setting up API access and webhooks — generating an API key, choosing webhook events and viewing the deliveries log — sits with the Owner. Managers, Inspectors and the Billing role don't deal with the API at all. Once an integration is live, the API itself follows the same cost rules as the app: only creating an inspection or a rental agreement uses a credit, and everything else (including licence checks and all reads) is free.
What if I invite someone with the wrong role?
It's an easy fix. If the invitation hasn't been accepted yet, you can revoke it and send a fresh one with the right role, or simply wait until they join and change their role then. Either way nothing is lost — invitations and role changes don't cost a credit, and there's no limit on how many times you can adjust someone's access. See managing your team for the exact steps.