Please note that this new permissions framework is in the process of being rolled out. If it does not seem to align with permissions in your Harvest account, this means that the new system has not yet been released for you. You can see more about the out-going permissions system here.

Harvest gives you six built-in roles to control what your teammates can see and do in your account. Need something more tailored? You can also create custom roles by starting from any built-in role and adjusting individual permissions to fit your team's workflow.

Note: Only Administrators can view or change a person's role. Custom roles are available on accounts with the new permissions experience enabled.

Built-in roles at a glance

Every person on your Harvest account is assigned one role. Here's a quick look at what each role is designed for, from the most limited to the most expansive.

Member

The Member role is perfect for anyone who just needs to track their own work. Members can log time and expenses on projects they're assigned to, and view their own entries — but they can't see anyone else's data, financial information, or account settings.

Included permissions:

• Time — View and log their own time entries
• Expenses — View and log their own expenses

Project Manager

Project Managers are great for team leads who need to stay on top of the projects they run. They can create new projects, manage the ones they're responsible for, and track time and expenses for the people and projects under their oversight. They also have full access to clients and tasks across the account.

Included permissions:

• Time — View and edit time for themselves and their managed people and projects
• Expenses — View and edit expenses for themselves and their managed people and projects
• Projects — View and edit projects they manage, plus create new projects
• Clients & Tasks — View and manage all clients and tasks

What Project Managers can't do: see or edit rates, manage invoices or estimates, manage people, approve timesheets, or access account settings.

People Admin

The People Admin role is designed for teammates who oversee the team itself — think HR leads or operations managers. They can invite and manage people, view all time and expenses, and withdraw approvals. They can see all projects but can't edit them or access any financial data.

Included permissions:

• Time — View and edit all time entries across the account
• Expenses — View and edit all expenses across the account
• Projects — View all projects (read-only)
• People — View, invite, archive, and manage all people
• Approvals — Withdraw approvals for managed people and projects

What People Admins can't do: edit projects, manage invoices or estimates, view rates, access reports, or change account settings.

Accounting

The Accounting role gives your finance team exactly what they need: full access to invoices, estimates, expenses, rates, and saved reports — without the ability to manage people or change account settings. They can view all time entries and projects across the account, but can only edit expenses.

Included permissions:

• Time — View all time entries across the account (read-only)
• Expenses — View and edit all expenses across the account
• Projects — View all projects (read-only)
• Clients & Tasks — View and manage all clients
• Rates — View all billable rates and cost rates (read-only)
• Invoices — View and manage all invoices
• Estimates — View and manage all estimates
• Reports — View and manage saved reports

What Accounting can't do: edit time entries, manage people, edit rates, manage projects, or access account settings.

Executive Manager

The Executive Manager role is built for senior leaders who need visibility and control across the entire operation. They can manage time, expenses, people, projects, clients, tasks, invoices, estimates, and reports. The only things they can't touch are account settings, billing, and rate editing.

Included permissions:

• Time — View and edit all time entries across the account
• Expenses — View and edit all expenses across the account
• Projects — View and edit all projects across the account
• Clients & Tasks — View and manage all clients and tasks
• People — View, invite, archive, and manage all people
• Rates — View all billable rates and cost rates (read-only)
• Invoices — View and manage all invoices
• Estimates — View and manage all estimates
• Reports — View and manage saved reports
• Approvals — Withdraw approvals for managed people and projects

What Executive Managers can't do: edit billable or cost rates, view or change account settings, or manage billing.

Administrator

Administrators have unrestricted access to everything in Harvest — every feature, every setting, every person's data. This includes account settings, billing, rate management, and all the permissions from every other role. If you need to limit someone's access in any way, choose a different role instead.

Includes all permissions listed above, plus:

• Rates — Edit all billable rates and cost rates
• Account — View and manage account settings
• Billing — View and manage billing and payment methods

Note: The Account Owner is a special Administrator who can also close the account or put it on hold. Each account has one Administrator who’s designated as the Account Owner. This is often the person who first opened the account, but the current Account Owner can transfer ownership to another Administrator in your account settings. In addition to the standard Administrator permissions, the Account Owner is the only person who can close the account or put it on hold, and other Administrators can’t edit the Account Owner’s email address.

Creating a custom role

If none of the built-in roles fit someone's responsibilities perfectly, you can create a custom role. Custom roles start from one of the built-in roles and let you add or remove individual permissions to match the exact access a person needs.

Who can create custom roles?

Only Administrators can create, apply, and delete custom roles.

How to create a custom role

1. Head to Team and click Actions > Edit next to the person whose permissions you want to change.
2. Select the Permissions tab on the left.
3. Choose a built-in role as your starting point. This determines the baseline set of permissions.
4. Below the role selection, you'll see the permissions panel organized into categories like Time, Expenses, Projects, and more. Click a category to expand it and see the individual permissions.
5. Check or uncheck permissions to customize the role. When you add a permission, any prerequisites it depends on are turned on automatically. When you remove a permission, anything that depends on it is turned off too.
6. Once you're happy with the permission set, click Save as custom role. You'll see this button appear whenever the current permissions differ from the built-in role's defaults.
7. Give your custom role a descriptive name (for example, "Marketing Lead" or "Finance Reviewer") and click Save custom role.

That's it! Your custom role is now saved and ready to use.

Applying a custom role to another person

Once you've saved a custom role, it appears in a Custom Roles section below the built-in roles on every person's permissions page. To apply it:

1. Go to the person's Permissions tab.
2. Scroll down to the Custom Roles section and select the custom role you want to apply.
3. The permissions panel will update to show the custom role's permission set. You can further adjust permissions if needed before saving.
4. Click Update permissions (or Save permissions and continue for new people).

Editing permissions after applying a custom role

After applying a custom role, you can still adjust individual permissions for that specific person. If you add or remove permissions beyond what the custom role includes, you'll see a badge showing the difference (for example, "+2 permissions"). You can save these adjusted permissions as a new custom role, or apply them only to that person.

Deleting a custom role

To delete a custom role, click the trash icon next to the custom role name in the Custom Roles section. Deleting a custom role won't change any person's current permissions — it simply removes the template so it can no longer be applied to new people.

Good to know

• You can save up to 50 custom roles per Harvest account.
• Custom role names must be unique within your account and can be up to 100 characters long.
• Every person always has at least the Member-level permissions (viewing and logging their own time and expenses), regardless of role.
• When you customize permissions, Harvest automatically selects the best-fitting built-in role behind the scenes to keep the system consistent.
• If you're editing a person who was on a legacy role that's no longer available, you'll see a prompt to choose a new role. You can also save their current permissions as a custom role to preserve them.

Permission categories reference

Permissions are organized into 11 categories. Here's a complete list of every individual permission available in Harvest.

Time

• View their own time entries
• Log and edit their own time
• View time for managed people and projects
• Log and edit time for managed people and projects
• View all time entries across the account
• Log and edit all time entries across the account

Expenses

• View their own expenses
• Log and edit their own expenses
• View expenses for managed people and projects
• Log and edit expenses for managed people and projects
• View all expenses across the account
• Log and edit all expenses across the account

Projects

• View projects they manage
• Edit projects they manage
• Create new projects
• View all projects across the account
• Edit all projects across the account

Clients & Tasks

• View all clients
• Create and edit all clients
• View all tasks
• Create and edit all tasks

People

• View managed people
• Manage assigned people
• View all people on the account
• Invite, archive, and manage all people

Rates

• View billable rates for managed projects
• Edit billable rates for managed projects
• View all billable rates
• Edit all billable rates
• View all cost rates
• Edit all cost rates

Invoices

• View invoices for managed projects
• Create and edit draft invoices for managed projects
• Manage invoices for managed projects
• View all invoices
• Manage all invoices

Estimates

• View all estimates
• Create and edit all estimates

Reports

• View the Profitability report
• View the Contractor report
• View the Uninvoiced, Invoiced, and Receivables reports
• View saved reports
• Create and edit saved reports

Approvals

• Withdraw approvals for managed people and projects

Account

• View account settings
• Manage account settings
• View billing information
• Manage billing and payment methods