Who Uses Hardhat Flow¶

Hardhat Flow is designed for every person in a construction company, from the owner's office to the job site. Each user is assigned exactly one role. That role determines what they can see, what they can edit, and what actions they can take — both in the interface and at the API level.

Platform Admin¶

A Platform Admin operates at the system level, above any individual company. This role is held by the people who run the Hardhat Flow platform itself. Platform Admins can access all tenants, manage tenant configurations, and perform system-level operations that are not available to anyone within a single company.

Daily in Hardhat Flow: Monitor tenant health, manage tenant accounts, handle escalated support issues, and perform system administration tasks across all companies.

Cannot do: Platform Admins are system operators, not company users. They do not participate in the Bid → Job → Invoice workflow of any specific tenant in a normal business context.

Owner¶

The Owner is the most powerful role within a company. This is typically the business owner, principal, or an executive with full authority over company operations. The Owner has unrestricted access to every record in their company and is the only person who can take irreversible actions like cancelling jobs or rejecting bids.

Daily in Hardhat Flow: Review the bid pipeline, approve or reject bids (triggering automatic job creation on approval), monitor active jobs, review invoices and payments, and manage user accounts for the company.

Can do that no other role can:

Approve, reject, or cancel bids
Cancel jobs
Edit any record in any status
Create and manage user accounts
Create and edit invoices

Cannot do: Nothing within their company is restricted. Owners do not have access to other tenants.

Accounting¶

The Accounting role is for bookkeepers, office managers, and finance staff responsible for billing and payment tracking. They have full access to the financial side of the system but are deliberately excluded from the bid creation process.

Daily in Hardhat Flow: Review jobs that are in Completed / Needs Invoice status, create and submit invoices, record incoming payments, and monitor outstanding balances.

Can access: Invoices, payments, jobs (read-only), and client records.

Cannot do: Create or edit bids. Accounting is a financial role — scope and pricing decisions belong to Project Managers and Owners.

Project Manager¶

The Project Manager (PM) is the operational hub of Hardhat Flow. They own the bid process, drive jobs through to completion, and coordinate the field team. PMs see all bids they created and all jobs where they are the assigned PM, plus jobs managed by supervisors they have assigned.

Daily in Hardhat Flow: Create and edit bids, advance bids through the approval pipeline, assign Supervisors and Badge Workers to jobs, update job statuses as work progresses, and post updates on active jobs.

Can do:

Create, edit, and submit bids
Assign workers to jobs
Update job status (Ready to Start → In Progress → Completed / Needs Invoice)
Post updates and upload photos to jobs

Cannot do: Approve, reject, or cancel bids. Create or edit invoices. Access jobs they are not assigned to.

Supervisor¶

The Supervisor is a field lead who is assigned to specific jobs. They manage day-to-day execution on the job site and report progress back to the office. Supervisors have a narrow, focused view — they see only the jobs they are assigned to and have no visibility into bid details or financial information.

Daily in Hardhat Flow: Check assigned job details, coordinate with Badge Workers on site, post progress updates with photos, and flag issues as they arise.

Can do:

View details of assigned jobs
Post updates (text and photos) on assigned jobs
Upload photos

Cannot see: Bid details, invoice amounts, jobs they are not assigned to, other workers' schedules.

Supervisors do not see bid pricing or scope documents.

Job assignment gives Supervisors access to operational job details only — not the financial or contractual information in the originating bid.

Badge Worker¶

The Badge Worker is a field team member — a tradesperson, laborer, or subcontractor who is assigned to specific jobs. This is the most restricted role in the system, designed to be simple and usable from a phone in the field.

Daily in Hardhat Flow: Open the app, check their assigned jobs, review job details, and post updates or photos as work progresses.

Can do:

View details of assigned jobs
Post updates and upload photos

Cannot see: Bids, invoices, jobs they are not assigned to, other workers' information.

Badge Workers only need to know about their own jobs.

The interface for this role is intentionally minimal. If something isn't visible, it's because the role doesn't need it.

Quick Reference Table¶

Capability	Platform Admin	Owner	Accounting	Project Manager	Supervisor	Badge Worker
Create/edit bids	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
Approve/reject/cancel bids	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
View bids	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
Create/assign jobs	✅	✅	❌	✅	❌	❌
View jobs	✅	✅	✅ (read)	✅ (assigned)	✅ (assigned)	✅ (assigned)
Post updates/photos	✅	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Create/edit invoices	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Record payments	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌
Manage users	✅	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Access all tenants	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌

See the full permissions matrix for a complete breakdown.