Before your team can begin managing consumer and payment data in the PayNearMe Business Portal, you’ll first need to establish user accounts for your staff. Each account is granted access to portal features—such as customer management, payments, disbursements, communications, and reporting—through permission groups, individually customized permissions, or a combination of both. Your PayNearMe Technical Account Manager (TAM) will initially configure the Site Administrator user(s), who hold comprehensive privileges, including adding and managing users. From there, Site Administrators can assign access to additional team members, ensuring each individual only accesses the modules and functionality pertinent to their responsibilities.

The following sections provide a detailed overview of how to assign access, create and manage user accounts in the Business Portal, and the permissions available for your site.

Options for Assigning Access

As a Site Administrator, you control what each user can see and do in the Business Portal and Agent Interface. PayNearMe gives you three flexible ways to define that access:

Permission Groups (Role Sets): Configurable, named collections of permissions that you assign to users. NOTE: Permission Groups must be enabled by your PayNearMe TAM.
Individual Permissions: Permissions you select one-by-one for each specific user account.
Combination: A permission group as the user's base access, plus additional individual permissions for exceptions.

You can use whichever approach fits your organization. Many sites start with individual permissions and adopt permission groups as their user base grows.

Permission Groups

A permission group is a reusable access profile you create for your site—for example, Basic Agent, Disbursement Creator, or Disbursement Approver. Each group contains a defined set of permissions from the table in Understanding the Different Permissions.

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Required Enablement
The permission group feature must be enabled for your site by your PayNearMe TAM. Contact your TAM if you do not see the Permission Groups section on the Admin tab in the Business Portal.

When you assign a user to a permission group, the group defines that user's core access. If you later add or remove permissions from the group, every user assigned to that group receives the updated permissions the next time they log in. You do not need to edit each user account individually.

Permission groups work especially well for clients with a large user base. Instead of reviewing and updating permissions user by user, you can:

Assign the same permission group to many users when creating accounts or through bulk assignment
Change access for an entire team by editing a single permission group
Reduce the risk of inconsistent or incorrect permissions across similar job functions

You can create and manage permission groups from Permission Group section on the Admin tab in the Business Portal.

Individual Permissions

You can also assign permissions directly to a user account by selecting individual permission checkboxes when creating or editing that user. This approach works well when:

Your site has a small number of users
A user needs a unique combination of permissions that does not match any existing group
You want full control over a single account without creating a new permission group

If a user is not assigned to a permission group, their individually selected permissions are the source of truth for their access.

You can remove a user from a permission group at any time and switch to individually assigned permissions instead.

Combining Permission Groups and Individual Permissions

You are not limited to one approach. The Business Portal supports user accounts where access is defined by permission groups and user accounts where access is defined by individually customized permissions.

Choosing the Right Approach

Scenario	Recommended Approach
Small team with varied access needs	Individual Permissions
Many users with similar job functions	Permission Groups
Need to update access for a team quickly	Edit the Permission Group
Most users need a standard permission group (e.g., Agents), but one user (e.g., a Agent Supervisor) needs extra permissions to perform tasks	Permission Groups for Agents + Individual Permissions for the Agent Supervisor
One user needs a fully custom access profile	Individual Permissions (or create a dedicated Permission Group)

Understanding the Different Permissions

Permissions grant access to different screens and functionality in the Business Portal and Agent Interface. The following table provides a description of each permission that can be assigned individually or included in a permission group.

Permission	Description
Admin	Provides access to the Admin tab where users can edit business details, view/add users, and review the site’s charge history and invoices (if available).
Create Customers/Accounts	Grants access to the Customers section and gives the user the ability to create customers and accounts for payments and disbursements. NOTE: Requires the View Customers/Accounts permission.
Edit Customers/Accounts	Grants access to the Customers section and gives the user the ability to edit customer and account information such as name, email, and phone number (NOTE: This does not include the preferred phone number as only the consumer can edit this value.) for payments and disbursements.
View Customers/Accounts	Grants access to the Customers section where the user can view customer and account information for payments and disbursements.
View Payments	Grants access to the Payments section where the user can view payment information.
Configure	Grants access to the Configure tab where users can update merchant details (e.g., edit the merchant logo, configure callback URLs, etc.) and the Business Portal and Agent Interface features can be configured.
Communicate	Gives users the ability to send emails and texts to consumers.
Agent Interface	Gives the user access to the Agent Interface where he/she can view customer and payment data. NOTE: All merchant users should have access to the Agent Interface.
Developer	Provides access to the Developer tab where the user can access API documentation, create and manage their API keys, review API call logs, and use the callback debugger.
Manage Users	Provides access to the Admin tab where business portal users can be managed (i.e., created, edited, and/or removed).
Reports	Provides access to Reconciliation and Settlement reports in the Payments section.
Agent Interface Electronic Payments	Grants the ability to process an electronic payment (e.g., ACH, card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay) within the Agent Interface. NOTE: Requires the Agent Interface permission.
Refund Electronic Payments	Grants the ability to initiate a partial or full refund for an electronic payment.
Supervisor	Provides ability to override merchant business rules. For example, if there is a minimum payment requirement set by a business rule, then a supervisor would be able to override this restriction and process the payment. NOTE: This permission only displays when Business Rules are enabled and active for a client site.
View Disbursements	Provides access to the Disbursements section where users can view disbursement details. It also enables users to view disbursements from the Customer Details screen. NOTE: This permission must be enabled with the the View Payments permission.
Alternate Autopay Authorizations	Provides access to a different list of autopay authorization methods including a telephone recording, a signed authorization agreement, or a clicked-through web flow where the consumer agrees to scheduled payments.
Approve Disbursements	Provides access to the Disbursements section where users can approve disbursements. It also enables users to approve disbursements from the Customer Details screen. NOTE: To minimize risk, PayNearMe recommends that user accounts be granted either the Approve Disbursements permission or the Create Disbursements permission, but not both.
Create Disbursements	Provides access to the Disbursements section where users can create disbursements. It also enables users to create disbursements from the Customer Details screen. NOTE: To minimize risk, PayNearMe recommends that user accounts be granted either the Approve Disbursements permission or the Create Disbursements permission, but not both.
Schedule Autopay	Grants the ability for a user to set a recurring autopay schedule in the Agent Interface.
Cancel Autopay	Grants the ability for a user to cancel a recurring autopay schedule in the Agent Interface.
Waive Fees	Grants the ability to waive fees. NOTE: Requires an Agent Waived pricing plan.
Cancel Disbursements	Provides access to the Disbursements section where users can cancel disbursements. It also enables users to cancel disbursements from the Customer Details screen.
Dashboards	Provides access to the Insights Dashboards.
No Card Entry	Prevents users from adding debit or credit cards in the Business Portal/Agent Interface.
No ACH Entry	Prevents users from adding bank accounts in the Business Portal/Agent Interface.
Agent Cannot Edit	Prevents users from editing consumer information in Agent Interface.
Cannot Cancel Payments	Prevents users from canceling unprocessed payments in the Business Portal/Agent Interface.
Chargeback Disputes	Grants access to the Disputes and Returns screen and gives users the ability to dispute chargebacks.
Manage Risk	Grants the user the ability to unblock ACH payment methods that were previously blocked because of returns.
Client Initiated Withdrawal Initiator	Grants the user the ability to initiate withdrawal requests from the client's disbursement account. The balance is automatically decremented upon initiation.
Client Initiated Withdrawal Approver	Grants the user the ability to review, approve, or reject withdrawal requests from the client's disbursement account.
Sensitive Data	Grants the user access to view Personal Identifiable Information (PII).
Beta Features	Grants access the Beta Features section where users can preview and test upcoming features to the Business Portal.