Account & settings

Team and roles

The five staff roles and exactly what each can do, staff who never sign in, and why a role at one venue never grants access at another.

Updated Aug 21, 2026

Access in TableStack is decided by roles, and every role is granted at a specific venue. This article explains the roles, what they can do, and how venue-scoping keeps a multi-venue group secure. To add people, see invite your team.

Roles are venue-scoped

The single most important thing to understand: a role belongs to a venue, not to your whole organization. If you run three restaurants under one account, a Manager at one of them has no access to the other two unless they are given a role there as well. The same person can even hold different roles at different venues — a Server at one, a Host at another.

This is deliberate. It means you can hire a seasonal host for your patio location without handing them the keys to every venue in the group.

Owner is the one exception. Owner applies across every venue in your organization automatically — grant it once and that person is an Owner everywhere, including any venue you add later. See Owner protections below.

The five roles

Each role carries a fixed set of permissions:

Role	Key abilities
Owner	Everything, at every venue automatically: the organization and billing, every venue's settings, staff, floors, reports, guests, reservations and all of service.
Manager	Manage venue settings, staff, floors and sections; view the activity log and reports; full guest, reservation and service access. No organization-level control.
Host	View floors and manage sections; view and manage guests and reservations; seat parties, run visits and bus tables.
Server	View floors, guests and reservations; advance their tables through service and bus them.
Busser	View floors and mark tables clean.

Higher roles include everything the roles below them can do. Every role can at least view the floor, since that is the shared picture of the room.

Exactly what each role can do

You don't assign permissions one by one — you pick a role and it carries the right set. This is the full list, so you can see precisely where each line is drawn.

	Owner	Manager	Host	Server	Busser
Billing, plan and subscription	✅	—	—	—	—
Delete a venue permanently	✅	—	—	—	—
Create staff accounts directly	✅	—	—	—	—
Change the booking address	✅	—	—	—	—
Add, rename and archive venues	✅	✅	—	—	—
Venue settings & Integrations (hours, turn times, pacing, deposits)	✅	✅	—	—	—
Invite, re-role and remove staff	✅	✅	—	—	—
View the activity log	✅	✅	—	—	—
View reports and dashboards	✅	✅	—	—	—
Design floors (place and move tables)	✅	✅	—	—	—
Merge duplicate guests	✅	✅	—	—	—
Export or erase guest data	✅	✅	—	—	—
Manage sections and server assignments	✅	✅	✅	—	—
Edit guests, notes, preferences and allergies	✅	✅	✅	—	—
Create, change and cancel reservations	✅	✅	✅	—	—
Seat a party	✅	✅	✅	—	—
View guests	✅	✅	✅	✅	—
View reservations	✅	✅	✅	✅	—
Advance a visit through service	✅	✅	✅	✅	—
View the live floor	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Mark a table clean	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅

If a teammate can't reach something, it's because their role at that venue doesn't include that line.

Plenty of people need to exist in TableStack without ever opening it — the servers and bussers a host assigns to sections all night. You can add them with just a name and a role: no email address, no invitation, no password. They appear in the section server picker and can be assigned to visits like anyone else.

An email address is optional on these records, and purely for your own contact list — it does not let them in. If they later need the app, an Owner can turn on login for that same record, so every section and visit already attached to them carries over.

Owner protections

Owner works differently from every other role: it isn't granted per venue, it's granted for the whole organization. Make someone an Owner and they gain access to every venue you have — current and future. Add a new venue later and your existing Owners are on it automatically, with nothing to re-grant. Step someone down from Owner, or remove them from the team, and it comes off everywhere at once, not just the venue you were looking at.

Two rules protect ownership on top of that: only an Owner can grant or change Owner roles, and your organization can never be left without an Owner — the last one can't be demoted or removed. This prevents your account from being accidentally locked out of itself.

Working for two restaurant groups

One person, one login, even across unrelated businesses. If someone who already has a TableStack account is invited by another organization, accepting adds that group to their existing login rather than making them a second account — their venue switcher then lists venues from both, labelled by group.

Access never blurs: you are only ever working in one organization at a time, decided by the venue you're currently in. Guests, reservations and reports never cross between them.

Removing someone from your team takes away their access to your venues only. If they work for another group, that account keeps working there — you are removing them from your organization, not deleting them from TableStack.

If your organization was the only one they worked for, the account stays on file but is switched off completely: their password stops working, any saved passkey is deleted, and API access is revoked. Their name stays attached to past visits and sections so your reports and history stay accurate.

What this affects

Everything a teammate can see and do across the floor, reservations, guests, reports and settings.
Guest data — exporting or erasing guest records is permission-gated.

What affects this

Which venue a role is granted at — access never crosses to another venue.
Who is doing the granting — Owner changes are Owner-only.

Related: invite your team.

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