How do I create custom roles and permissions in MONA?
Go to Settings, then Team, then Permissions. Click New role, start from Admin, Member, or Accountant, then set each row to Allowed, On their projects, Only their own, or Not allowed.
Quick answer: go to Settings, then Team, then the Permissions tab, and click New role. Name it, pick what it should Start from (Admin, Member, or Accountant), click Create role, then set each row in its column to Allowed, On their projects, Only their own, or Not allowed. Assign it to teammates from the Members tab.
Seats, invitations, and the built-in roles are covered in How do team seats, roles, and shared credits work?. This article is about shaping what each role can do.
Who can use this
- Owner and admins create roles, edit cells, and change project and finance access. The owner always has every permission.
- Everyone else can open the Permissions tab and read the table, so a designer who gets blocked can see why and ask.
- Custom roles are part of every plan that has teammates.
How do I create a custom role?
- Go to Settings, then Team, and click the Permissions tab. The Roles table lists every role as a column and every permission as a row, under Can they….
- Click New role.
- Enter a Name (for example, Junior Designer, Project Manager, or Bookkeeper) and an optional Description (optional).
- Pick Start from: Admin, Member, or Accountant. The new role copies that role’s settings. Anything not in the table, such as billing and team settings, follows the role you started from.
- Click Create role.
- Change any cell in the new column. Each change saves on its own.
To rename a role, edit its description, or delete it, use the menu at the top of its column (Rename, Edit description, Delete). Reset to MONA defaults puts a built-in column back, and a custom role can be reset to its starting role’s settings.
What do the four settings mean?
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Allowed | They can do it anywhere in the studio. |
| On their projects | Only on projects they are assigned to, plus anything they created. Offered on the Money rows. |
| Only their own | Only on things they created themselves. |
| Not allowed | They cannot do it. MONA explains who can when they try. |
Not every row offers all four. A row like Create projects is simply Allowed or Not allowed.
What can I control?
The rows are grouped by area. Highlights:
- Money: See the studio’s books, payments and retainers. See project money: costs, margin, invoices, payments and vendor bills. Create and send invoices. Create payment links. Edit, replace or cancel payment links. Send proposals and invoices to clients without approval. Delete an estimate, void an invoice, unlock a sent or approved proposal, correct a paid invoice, reverse a payment, void or delete a purchase order.
- Projects: create, archive or restore, delete a project, and take a file off a project.
- Schedule: delete a schedule line from the FF&E schedule.
- Databases: delete rows, clear every row, replace a database, delete a document or database.
- Library, Canvas, Slides, Inventory: delete files, canvases, and decks, retire inventory items, create and edit services.
- Studio Brain: change the shared notes and client and project pages.
- Agents: create studio agents, invite teammates into an Ask MONA chat, delete agents and scheduled tasks, and send texts from the studio’s MONA number (only the owner can change this row).
- Client links: take a published deck, client portal, or the studio site offline.
- CRM: view trade account passwords from the studio vault, overwrite contacts from an import, delete contacts or companies.
Per-person exceptions. Some rows show People. Click it to give one person a permission without changing their whole role, for example letting one Member create invoices.
How do I require approval before something goes to a client?
- Find the row Send proposals and invoices to clients without approval.
- Set it to Not allowed for the role. On their projects or Only their own lets them send their own work directly and asks for review on the rest.
- When that person sends, the button reads Request review. Owners and admins get a notification and open Reviews before sending, where they click Approve and send or return it with a note.
See Proposals and contract signing.
How do I control which projects a member sees?
- Go to Settings, then Team, then General. Under Access, set Who sees which projects to Members see only projects they are assigned to. The default is Everyone sees every project. Owners and admins always see everything.
- On each project page, click the + next to the teammate faces in the header to open Assign teammates.
- To fine-tune one person, open their menu on the Members tab and choose Project access. Each project shows Can see or Hidden.
How is project finance access different from studio finance access?
For anyone on the Member role, owners and admins can open the member’s menu on the Members tab and choose:
- Give project finance access (their projects): money on projects they are on or created. No Books, bank, or QuickBooks.
- Give project finance access (all projects): money on every project they can see. Still no Books, bank, or QuickBooks.
- Give studio finance access: invoices, payment links, Books, and payments, without making them an admin.
Remove project finance access or Remove studio finance access takes it back. For an outside bookkeeper, use the read-only Accountant role instead. See How do I run financial reports in MONA?.
How do I check what someone can see?
The owner can open a member’s menu and choose View as that person. A banner reads Viewing as their name, read-only, and nothing you do is saved or sent. Click Exit to return. Owners and admins also get an Activity tab in Team settings showing who deleted, archived, voided, or unpublished what.
What it does not do (yet)
- A custom role cannot change billing or team-management rights. Those always follow the role it started from.
- The Accountant role, and any role started from it, is read-only except for seeing the books.
- MONA the agent can list who has which role, but it will not create or edit roles. Ask in chat and it points you to Settings.
Want a hand?
If you want help mapping your studio’s jobs to roles, book 30 minutes with the founder at calendly.com/mona-justin/30min.
Related articles
- How do team seats, roles, and shared credits work?
- How do I run financial reports in MONA?
- Proposals and contract signing
- How do I manage tasks and deadlines in MONA?
- How do I track time on projects in MONA?
Frequently asked questions
Who can create and edit roles?
The owner and admins. Every teammate can open Settings, then Team, then Permissions and read the table, so they can see why something is blocked. Only the owner can change who may send texts from the studio’s MONA number.
Can I change what the built-in Member or Admin role can do?
Yes. Admin, Member, and Accountant columns are editable the same way as custom roles, and Reset to MONA defaults puts a column back. The Owner column is locked to everything, so an owner can never lock themself out.
What does On their projects mean?
The person can act on records of projects they are assigned to, plus anything they created themselves. It is offered on the Money rows, for example Create and send invoices or See project money.
Can a designer see project budgets without seeing the studio’s books?
Yes. Give them project finance access, for their projects or for all projects. They see costs, margin, invoices, payments, and vendor bills on those projects, with no access to Books, the bank, or QuickBooks.
Can I require approval before someone sends a proposal or invoice?
Yes. Set Send proposals and invoices to clients without approval to Not allowed for that role. Their send button becomes Request review, and owners and admins approve it from Reviews before sending with Approve and send.
How many custom roles can I make?
Up to 50 per studio. Role names must be unique and cannot reuse Owner, Admin, Member, or Accountant.
What happens to people when I delete a role?
MONA asks where to move them first, to a built-in role or another custom role. If nobody holds the role, you just confirm. Deleting cannot be undone.
Does MONA the agent follow these permissions?
Yes. Requests in chat go through the same permission check as buttons in the app, so MONA cannot do something for a person that their role does not allow. MONA can tell you who has which role but cannot change roles; that stays in Settings.