Who can manage Shopify POS staff, and does it need POS Pro?

Which roles can manage Shopify POS staff?

Shopify's user-management page names three types of user who can manage POS staff from the Point of Sale channel or from Shopify POS: the store owner, the organization owner, and users with the POS user administrator role. The roles reference calls that role high-trust, and says only the organization owner, the store owner and administrators with equal or greater user management privilege can assign it.

There is a second door, and it carries a different name. Shopify's page on managing staff in the POS app says that if you are the store owner or are assigned the POS user manager role, you can add POS app-only staff directly within the Shopify POS app; the sentence above it instead describes a POS role with the Manage Point of Sale staff permission. Neither page states that those names and the POS user administrator role are one thing, so act on the label your own screen shows.

Shopify's roles reference documents four roles that carry POS user management — POS user administrator, plus three the user-management page never mentions.

Does managing POS staff require Shopify POS Pro?

Yes — and the user-management page states it as a condition, not a recommendation. Directly above that list of three user types sits one line: "This feature is available only for locations that are currently on the Shopify POS Pro subscription."

The subscription itself is chosen per location. Shopify's page on managing your POS app subscription says you can add Shopify POS Pro to specific locations to leverage the additional features only where they are required, and that an account owner can select POS subscriptions by location. Where that starts to bite is the second and third counters, and the multi-location case is worked through separately.

So a store with several counters settles this one location at a time, and the POS staff-management page describes the mixed result directly: its worked example gives one staff member "access to both POS Pro and POS Lite locations", and that person's POS role applies when they log in to the Pro locations but not the Lite ones.

How are POS users different from Shopify admin staff?

Shopify's POS staff-management page describes two categories. One is staff that have both POS app access and Shopify admin access, including the Point of Sale channel. The other is POS app only staff — people with access to the Shopify POS app who don't have access to your Shopify admin or Point of Sale channel.

That is why a cashier you set up as a POS app-only user never signs in to the admin at all: those users have access only to the Shopify POS app, don't need an email address and use a PIN, even though Shopify documents adding them from the POS app and from the Shopify admin alike. Who hands out access on the admin side is a separate question with a separate answer.

What POS staff management works without POS Pro?

Shopify defines the Pro-only pieces by the subscription they require: POS app only staff are only available to merchants using Shopify POS Pro and can only log in to POS Pro locations, and custom POS roles are introduced with the words "If you're on the POS Pro plan".

Of the two staff categories above, that leaves the one the POS staff-management page describes as able to log in to both POS Pro and POS Lite locations: staff who also hold a Shopify admin account. How many people can hold one at all is a plan question, and the staff ceiling is covered where it lives.

The POS staff-management page states directly what a POS Lite location does with roles: "All admin users with POS access use their PIN to access POS Lite locations, with full access, because POS roles don't apply. You can't restrict admin users with POS access from accessing Lite locations."