The information below only applies to PaintScout users who have signed up before May 12th, 2026.
If you've been using PaintScout for a while, you may have noticed that your user types look a little different. We've restructured how seats and permissions work to give you more flexibility and better match the way real painting businesses are actually organized.
Here's a breakdown of what changed, what stayed the same, and what's new.
The Old Structure
Previously, PaintScout had four user types, and permissions were fixed — you couldn't customize what each individual user could or couldn't see. You got what came with the role.
Old Seat | What they could do |
Admin | Full access to everything — account settings, all users' estimates, deals, events, tasks, and reports |
Sales | Access to their own estimates only. Could not access account settings, reports, or export data |
Office | Could view all estimates and invoices, send them, pull reports, add contacts, record payments, and create deals (with CRM). Could not create estimates |
The main limitation? No customization. If you had a Sales user who also needed to see other users' estimates, there was no way to grant that without upgrading them to Admin. If you had an Admin who shouldn't have access to billing, you couldn't restrict that either.
The New Structure
We've consolidated and redesigned seat types into three: Sales, Team, and Painter (Beta). The big difference is that each seat now comes with custom permissions — optional add-ons you can toggle per user to tailor their access to their actual role.
Sales is your full-access seat, designed for anyone who estimates, sells, or runs the business day-to-day. Think owners, estimators, and sales reps — anyone who needs to create and manage estimates and invoices. Sales replaces both the old Sales and Admin seats.
Team is your lightweight seat, designed for people who need broad visibility across the account but aren't in the estimating seat. Think office staff, production managers, and scheduling coordinators — people who need to see what's going on, manage deals, send documents, and record payments, but don't need to build estimates from scratch. Team replaces the old Office seat.
Painter (Beta) is an entirely new seat type built for field workers. Painters only see what's relevant to their assigned jobs — their schedule, work orders, and tasks. This seat type is free of charge during the beta.
New Seat | Replaces |
Sales | Admin + Sales |
Team | Office |
Painter (Beta) | No replacement - new seat type! |
How Your Users Were Migrated
Your existing users have been automatically moved to the new structure. Here's exactly how that mapping worked:
Old Seat | New Seat | What carried over |
Admin | Sales | All custom permissions enabled by default |
Sales | Sales | No custom permissions enabled |
Office | Team | Dashboard and Reports access enabled by default |
🔐 What Are Custom Permissions?
Custom permissions are brand new — they didn't exist before. They let you fine-tune what an individual user can access, without changing their seat type entirely.
Sales seat — custom permissions (all off by default for new seats)
Access to account settings
Access to account settings — Billing
Access to other users' documents
Access to reports
Ability to export data
Sales users can only access their own estimates, invoices, and deals, but they can also access records when they are linked to them in some way.
Team seat — custom permissions (all off by default for new seats)
Access to account settings
Access to account settings — Billing
Access to dashboard
Access to reports
Ability to export data
To edit a user's permissions:
Go to Account Settings → User Management
Click the 3 dots on the user
Click Edit permissions and make changes
A Few Practical Examples
"I have a Sales user who needs to see reports." Previously you'd have had to make them an Admin. Now, just keep them as our new basic Sales user and toggle on Access to reports.
"I have an Admin who shouldn't be touching billing." Previously you couldn't restrict this. Now, as a Sales user with custom permissions off by default for new users, you can choose exactly what they have access to. Note: existing Admins migrated with all permissions on — you can turn these off individually if needed.
"I had an Office user. What do they have now?" They're now a Team user. They've kept Dashboard and Reports access by default, and everything else they could do before carries over. They still cannot create or edit estimates.
New: Account Ownership
There's also a new Owner designation — indicated by a crown icon 👑 in User Management. Every account has one Owner, automatically assigned to the oldest active admin user (now the new Sales seat) on the account. If this looks incorrect in your account, please message support@paintscout.com
The Owner cannot be deactivated, and ownership can only be transferred to another Sales seat user by the current Owner.