User permissions

An overview of who has which permissions, and on which Breathe plan

Emma Johnson avatar
Written by Emma Johnson
Updated over a week ago

This article will give you an overview of all the different permissions we have in Breathe. Depending on what permissions you assign to employees allows them to view different areas of the system.

Please note: The permissions in Breathe are set and even though some can be customised, you are not able to create new ones.

Admin 

The Admin of a breathe account has total access to both personal and financial information for each employee on the system.

They are also the only user who has access to the following:

  • Plan and billing section

  • Purge employee data

  • API Key

  • Change holiday year

  • Getting started page

  • Switching on the payroll export

  • Enabling/disabling email notifications

Please note - Finance user permissions are an integral part of the Admin user access, but HR permissions are separate. You will not be able to transfer Admin rights to another user unless this person already has HR user permissions.


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HR 

HR users have access to all employee information such as holiday, sickness and personal information.

On the smaller plans, HR users have full access to all employee information, including salary information. They can access everything the admin can, except cancel plan, purge employee data, API Key, and change holiday year.

On higher plans, HR and Finance permissions are separate, and each user will have distinct roles and responsibilities within the system. When this distinction is drawn, certain actions that could previously be done by the HR user on the smaller plans will require both HR and Finance access - what we call 'super-user' access. Examples of such actions are the ability to assign Line Managers and change email addresses.

Please note - that only the Admin or another super user can assign Finance user permissions for other users.
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Finance User  

Finance users can see information such as expenses and salary.

A Finance user is used alongside the HR user to give or take away finance access to an HR user. If access is taken away from an HR user, they will not be able to see any financial information for any employee.

Another way to use this role is to give someone finance access, but remove their HR access, so they can see finance information for employees but can't see any other employee information (i.e. performance and training records).

PLEASE NOTE: The Finance permissions are available on the regular plans or above, for a Micro or a Starter plan this permission automatically falls with the Admin user.

HR Advisor

The HR advisor permission is designed for use by third-party HR consultants, external to your organisation.

If you are on a Micro or Starter plan then the HR Advisor will automatically have HR user access.

If you are on a Regular, Pro or Premium plan then the HR Advisor will automatically have HR and Finance access.

These permissions can not be removed from the HR Advisor.

 

Line manager 

Line manager permissions are set universally under line managers permissions. They only have access to the employees that report to them, and only to the information you have granted them access to.

You have the ability to set line managers so they see their direct and indirect (secondary) reporting employees (detailed in the guide below)


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Holiday approver 

A holiday approver only has access to their own profile and the leave information of the employees that they are the holiday approver for.
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Employee 

Employees only have access to their own information.

Who has what permissions?

If you would like to see who has what permissions at a glance you can do this by going to your employee list and sorting this by "Status and permissions".

FAQ

I don't know what permissions I have on my Breathe account- how can I find out?

You can find this out by going to your Profile > More > Permissions. Any line manager/HR/Finance permissions that have been assigned to you will display under 'Organisational roles'. 

Why can't I assign a line manager to an employee?

You will need to have both HR user and Finance permissions in order to assign a line manager to an employee. This combination of permissions is known as a 'super user'. As mentioned above, only the Admin or another super user can assign Finance user permissions for others.

How do I transfer my Admin permissions to someone else?

The Admin user can transfer their permissions to another HR user by going to their Profile > More > Permissions > Edit (blue pencil icon). We have a separate guide on this, found here

We hope this article is helpful and gives you a better understanding of who can see what within Breathe! Although if you do have any questions please do not hesitate to get in touch with our support team. 

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