Most firms never need one. The five built-in roles cover the common shapes, and a custom role is one more thing to maintain. Build one when you want a specific mix the presets do not offer, like a preparer who can also onboard clients.
Go to Settings → Users & SSO → Roles and click New custom role.
Building it
Give the role a name. That name is what appears in the Role dropdown everywhere else, so make it something your team will recognize on sight.
Then pick permissions. There are 25, grouped into seven areas:
Group | Covers |
Assets & data entry | Create, edit, delete, and import assets, and view clients, entities, returns and assets. |
Depreciation & elections | Run depreciation, and override Section 179 / bonus elections. |
Review (maker-checker) | Mark a return ready for review, mark a return reviewed, reopen a reviewed return. |
Reports & exports | View and run reports, and export firm data. |
Users & access | Manage users, assign roles, grant client access, switch the client-access mode, bulk-provision users. |
Firm settings & billing | Firm settings and tax defaults, billing and seats, the audit log. |
Technical & security | SSO, MFA policy, API keys, webhooks, sessions. |
Each group has Select all and Clear. A running count at the bottom reads "0 of 25 permissions selected".
You have to pick at least one. A role with no permissions cannot do anything, and the builder says so.
The one rule
You cannot build a role that can do something you cannot do. If you are a Manager, the five Technical & security permissions are not yours to give away. This is the same rule that stops you assigning a role above your own, and it applies to building roles as well as handing them out.
Living with custom roles
Custom roles appear on the Roles tab under Your custom roles, each with a count of how many people hold it. Edit and Delete sit on the row.
You cannot delete a role while anyone holds it. Move those people to another role first. The product will tell you to reassign rather than silently orphaning anyone.
Starting from a preset instead
If a built-in role is close, consider using it as-is. Roles are easy to change later, and a firm with five custom roles that each differ from a preset by one permission is harder to reason about than a firm using the presets. See User roles, and what each one can do.