How to Invite, Manage and Remove Billing Staff Safely

A wholesale owner may prepare some invoices personally and let a counter employee prepare the rest. Sharing the owner's login would be the quickest arrangement, but it would also expose more of the business than the employee needs and make it difficult to know who created a bill.

My Local Shops uses two separate apps for this reason. The owner manages sales, outstanding, profit and reports in Order Manager. The employee signs in to Staff Bill with their own Google account and works under an invitation from that owner.

The owner can add as many billing staff as the business needs without increasing the My Local Shops subscription price. Each employee still receives a separate identity, so lower software cost does not require a shared login.

The invitation is more than a message containing a download link. The system binds one verified Google identity to one owner, checks that relationship whenever protected business data is accessed, records who created each invoice and lets either side end the working relationship without sharing a password.

This guide explains the complete invitation, acceptance, location, billing and removal flow.

Owner and staff use different apps

The separation begins before anyone signs in.

Person	App	Main purpose
Business owner	Order Manager	Manage parties, invoices, outstanding, payments, returns, profit, reports and staff access
Billing employee	Staff Bill	Prepare invoices and handle permitted day-to-day billing work for the connected owner

Staff Bill is not a smaller copy of the owner's complete dashboard. Its main navigation contains Bill, Parties and Settings. It does not contain the owner's Reports area, and its screens do not display the owner's landed cost, invoice profit or business profit reports.

That distinction allows an employee to bill a retailer without requiring the owner to reveal the password to the owner app.

Before sending an invitation

The owner should confirm three things:

1. the business subscription is active;
2. the employee has their own Google account; and
3. the exact email address for that Google account is known.

The email is the identity used throughout the process. It is trimmed and converted to lowercase so differences such as Staff.Name@gmail.com and staff.name@gmail.com do not create two separate staff records.

An employee should use an individual account rather than the owner's account or a shared counter account. Individual accounts make removal and invoice attribution meaningful when staff change later.

Step 1: the owner sends the invitation

In Order Manager, open the Staff page and choose Invite Staff. Enter the employee's Google-account email address. The invitation is then stored for that owner and that normalized email.

The invite begins with the status Pending. At this point, the email address has been invited but has not gained access to the business.

The owner can share simple joining instructions containing:

• the Staff Bill download link;
• the exact Google email that was invited;
• a reminder to sign in with that same account; and
• an instruction to accept the invitation in the app.

The app download page is mylocalshops.in/apps/order-manager-staff.

Sending an invitation does not send the owner's password, and the employee does not sign in as the owner.

Invitation states

The Staff page separates active staff from invitations. An invite may be:

Status	Meaning
Pending	Sent by the owner but not yet accepted or declined
Accepted	The invited person accepted and a staff assignment was created
Declined	The invited person chose not to join
Cancelled	The owner withdrew the pending invitation

The owner can cancel an invitation while it is still pending. A declined or cancelled invitation can be sent again from Order Manager.

Cancelling a pending invite and removing active staff are different operations. Cancellation stops a person who has not joined. Removal revokes an assignment that is already active.

Step 2: staff sign in with the invited Google account

The employee installs Staff Bill and selects Google sign-in. The account picker is shown so the employee can choose the correct account instead of silently reusing an unrelated account already present on the phone.

After authentication, Staff Bill checks the signed-in email.

• If that exact account already has an active staff assignment, it opens the connected owner's billing workspace.
• If it has one or more pending invitations, the employee can review and respond.
• If there is no matching invitation, the app does not let the account enter someone else's business.
• If the account itself belongs to an active subscribed owner, Staff Bill directs that person to the full Order Manager app instead of turning the owner account into a staff identity.

An invitation sent to rahul@gmail.com cannot be accepted while signed in as rahul.shop@gmail.com, even if both addresses belong to the same person. The owner must invite the address the employee will actually use.

Step 3: staff accept and identify themselves

When accepting an invitation, the employee enters a name and may add a phone number. These details identify the person to the employer; they do not replace Google authentication.

Acceptance is saved as one protected operation:

1. the staff assignment is created with the owner's ID, staff email, staff account ID, name and phone;
2. the selected invitation becomes accepted; and
3. any other pending owner invitations for that same staff account are declined.

This produces a deliberate one staff account to one owner relationship. A billing employee cannot accept one invitation and then use the same Staff Bill identity to move between unrelated subscribed businesses.

The assignment is bound to both the email and the Firebase-authenticated account ID. Knowing the email text alone is not enough to impersonate the employee.

What protects one subscriber from another

Every shared business query still has an owner scope. Staff Bill does not search across all sellers and then hide unrelated results in the interface. It works with the owner ID established by the accepted assignment.

Firestore rules independently verify that:

• the user is authenticated;
• a staff assignment exists for the signed-in email;
• the assignment belongs to the owner whose data is requested;
• the assigned staff account ID matches the signed-in account; and
• the owner's subscription is active.

If any of these checks fail, the client is not authorised to read or write that owner's protected records. This means an owner ID copied from another screen or guessed manually does not grant cross-subscriber access.

Step 4: choose the billing location

After the staff-owner connection is established, Staff Bill loads the owner's shops and godowns.

• If the owner has no location, the employee is told that the employer must create one first.
• If the employee has only one permitted location, Staff Bill selects it automatically.
• If several permitted locations are available, the employee chooses where billing is taking place.

The selected location is remembered on that device for that owner, so the employee does not have to select it before every bill. It can be changed later in Settings.

The billing location matters because it determines which location's stock is available for the invoice and which location is recorded on the bill.

The owner chooses the permitted locations

When managing staff in Order Manager, the owner can allow or remove shops and godowns for each employee. All current locations begin selected, so an owner who wants broad access does not need to configure every shop manually.

For a staff member who should use only one counter, the owner leaves that shop selected and removes the others. Staff Bill then offers only that permitted shop. If the owner later removes the employee's currently selected location, the employee must choose another permitted location before billing again.

What billing staff can do

Staff Bill gives the employee the operational information needed at the counter. Depending on the invoice workflow, staff can:

• view recent invoices for the connected owner;
• choose or add a sales party;
• search the owner's grouped product catalogue;
• scan an existing SKU barcode;
• add several colours and sizes from one product;
• add a custom item when it is not in inventory;
• create GST or non-GST invoices;
• record full, partial or credit payment at invoice time;
• record a later payment against an invoice;
• process permitted returns and credit notes; and
• choose the invoice PDF style.

The same parties and invoices become available to the owner in Order Manager because staff work inside the owner's business scope, not in a separate employee database.

If staff add a new party while billing, it belongs to that owner's party list. It does not become visible to other subscribers.

What remains for the owner

Staff Bill's interface deliberately does not expose the owner's sensitive business-analysis areas.

Information or action	Staff Bill	Order Manager owner
Create wholesale invoice	Yes	Yes
Use owner parties and sellable stock	Yes	Yes
Record ordinary payments and returns	Yes	Yes
View landed cost in the billing interface	No	Yes
View invoice profit and margin	No	Yes
View owner and CA reports	No	Yes
Finalise monthly GST/CA report pack	No	Yes
Make an owner-only month-close settlement correction	No	Yes
Invite or remove staff	No	Yes

Staff actions can still contribute to owner-only totals. For example, an invoice created in Staff Bill updates the same sales, stock and product-period records needed by Order Manager. Staff can perform the operational write without receiving access to read the owner's profit rollup.

The safety boundary is therefore based on role-specific screens and server rules together, not merely on hiding one button with a different colour.

How the owner knows who made a bill

An invoice created from Staff Bill stores the authenticated staff account ID and the staff name from the assignment. Order Manager can then show Billed by information on the invoice.

Consider a business with the owner Azhar and billing employee Rahul:

1. Azhar invites Rahul's Google email.
2. Rahul accepts in Staff Bill and enters his name.
3. Rahul creates invoice INV-1042 from the Borivali shop.
4. The invoice belongs to Azhar's seller account and Borivali location.
5. Order Manager shows that Rahul billed it.

This is safer and more useful than several people sharing the owner's login, where every invoice can appear to come from the same account.

Stock is checked again when the invoice is saved

Choosing a product does not reserve stock indefinitely. Another device may sell, transfer or adjust the same SKU before the employee taps save.

Staff Bill uses the owner and billing-location context to perform the final inventory write. The save process checks current product data and applies stock changes through protected transactional logic. If the available quantity changed and is no longer enough, the invoice is not allowed to silently push stock into an invalid state.

The normal counter workflow remains straightforward, while concurrent owner and staff activity is protected at the data layer.

For the complete item-entry flow, including grouped colour and size selection, read How to Create a Wholesale Invoice with Multiple Colours and Sizes.

Managing staff after they join

Order Manager's Staff page lists active staff separately from outstanding invitations. The owner can see the employee's recorded name and email and remove access when the employment or billing responsibility ends.

Staff can update their own displayed name and phone number in Staff Bill. They cannot change the assignment to another owner, replace the bound email or transfer the binding to another account through that profile form.

The distinction between common actions is important:

Action	Who uses it	Result
Cancel invite	Owner	A pending invitation can no longer be accepted
Remove staff	Owner	The active staff assignment is deleted and protected access is revoked
Sign out	Staff	Ends the phone session but keeps the employment assignment for the same account
Leave this owner	Staff	Deletes the active assignment and ends access to that owner's business

Signing out is appropriate when changing phones, securing a device or ending a shift. It does not mean the employee has left the business.

Leave this owner is different. Staff Bill warns the employee before deleting the relationship. The owner should use Remove when an employee leaves rather than relying on that employee to leave voluntarily.

What happens when the owner removes staff

Removing the assignment revokes the relationship used by Firestore security checks. Future protected reads and writes for that owner no longer pass the staff-authorisation test.

Removal does not delete legitimate business history. Invoices, payments and credit notes already created remain in the owner's records, and their creator information remains useful for audit and review.

It also does not erase the employee's personal Google account or force the owner to change a shared password, because no owner password was shared in the first place.

If Staff Bill was already open, part of the last loaded screen may remain visible until navigation or a new request occurs. The deleted assignment no longer authorises fresh protected operations. For a departing employee, the owner should remove access immediately rather than waiting for the end of the day.

What happens if the owner's subscription expires

Staff authorisation also checks the owner's active subscription. If the subscription expires, the assignment document may still exist, but the employee cannot continue using it as a route into protected owner billing data.

Renewal restores the owner's subscribed service. The owner should still review the active-staff list after renewal and remove anyone who should no longer be associated with the business.

For the full subscription timeline, read How Subscription Renewal Works: Monthly, Annual and Expired Plans.

Practical staff-access SOP for a wholesaler

Use this short process whenever someone starts or leaves billing work.

When staff join

1. Ask for the employee's own Google email.
2. Read the address back before sending the invitation.
3. Send the Staff Bill download link and exact invited email together.
4. Ask the employee to choose that account in Google sign-in.
5. Confirm the employee appears under Active staff, not only Invites.
6. Choose the shops and godowns that employee is allowed to use.
7. On the employee's device, verify the correct billing location.
8. Create one small test invoice and confirm its Billed by information in Order Manager.

During employment

1. Do not share the owner's Order Manager password.
2. Give every billing employee an individual staff identity.
3. Give staff access only to the locations they actually use and ask them to verify the location before billing from another permitted counter.
4. Review recent invoices and outstanding regularly from Order Manager.
5. Keep Staff Bill updated when a mandatory app update is released.

When staff leave

1. Open Order Manager's Staff page.
2. Remove the active employee immediately.
3. Confirm they no longer appear under active staff.
4. Review the employee's recent invoices if the handover requires it.
5. Do not delete historical invoices merely because the employee left.

A safe division of responsibility

The purpose of Staff Bill is not to make an employee another owner. It gives the employee a focused billing tool while preserving the owner's control of business analysis, reports and staff membership.

It also avoids a growing software bill as the counter team changes or expands: add as many billing staff as needed, give every person a separate login and pay nothing extra for adding them.

For practical cost examples and the exact boundaries of this promise, read Add Unlimited Billing Staff Without Paying Extra for Every Employee.

The owner invites an exact Google identity. The employee accepts from their own account. The system binds that identity to one owner, scopes shared data to that subscriber, records who created each invoice and checks the relationship again for protected operations. When the relationship ends, removing one assignment revokes access without destroying the owner's billing history.

That is the practical balance a small wholesale business needs: staff can keep the counter moving, while the owner keeps the business account, reports and sensitive decisions under control.

To compare the purpose of all four apps, read Which My Local Shops App Should the Owner and Staff Use?. For payment options available during and after billing, read How to Record Payments and Correct an Invoice's Settlement Status.