---
title: Creating and Editing a Client
description: Most customer accounts create themselves through your public registration form. You will still need to create one by hand from time to time — a migrated customer, an account taken over the phone, a test account — and you will…
url: "https://rackhelm.com/documentation/creating-and-editing-clients/"
updated: "2026-09-24"
category: "Clients, Staff & Access Control"
---

# Creating and Editing a Client

Most customer accounts create themselves through your public registration form. You will still need to create one by hand from time to time — a migrated customer, an account taken over the phone, a test account — and you will regularly need to edit one. Both happen on the same screens.

## Before you start

> **Note:** Creating an account requires `create_clients`; editing requires `edit_clients`; deleting requires `delete_clients`. Assigning roles is separate again — see the warning below.

## Creating a client

1. Open **Users & Roles → All Users** and select **New User**.
2. Fill in the form and select **Create User**. You are returned to the list with "User created successfully."

![The Create New User form with email, password, name and role fields](/wp-content/uploads/rackhelm-docs/clients-user-create.png)
Leave **Assigned Roles** empty for an ordinary customer — permissions come only from roles, so an account with none behaves as a plain client.

| Field | Rules |
| --- | --- |
| **Email** | Required, must be a valid address and must not already exist on any account — including guest and sub-account rows. |
| **Password** / **Confirm Password** | Required, at least 8 characters, and the two must match. |
| **First Name** / **Last Name** | Required, up to 255 characters each. |
| **Assigned Roles** | Optional, multi-select. Only honoured if you are permitted to assign roles. |

> **Warning:** This screen creates the account silently. No welcome email is sent, no verification message is sent, and the address is left unverified — so the customer will be held at the "verify your email" notice on first sign-in until they request a link. Tell them the password out of band, and expect them to verify before they can use the portal.

## Editing a client

Select **Manage** on the row, or the customer's name. The **Contact** tab holds the editable identity fields; every other tab is a different part of their account.

| Field | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Email** | Required and unique. Changing it clears the verification stamp, so the customer must verify the new address before the portal will let them back in. |
| **Password** / **Confirm Password** | Leave both blank to keep the current password. To set a new one, type it twice — minimum 8 characters. The customer is not emailed about the change. |
| **First Name** / **Last Name** | Required. |
| **Assigned Roles** | Multi-select. Saving takes effect immediately — the account's cached permissions are cleared on save rather than expiring later. |

> **Warning:** Saving the **Contact** tab clears the account's affiliate flag, because the affiliate controls now live on the **Affiliate** tab and the Contact form does not submit them. Existing tracking codes are kept. If the customer is an active affiliate, re-enable them afterwards by generating a tracking code on the Affiliate tab, which sets the flag again.

### Who may change roles

Role assignment is guarded separately from ordinary editing, and the guard is strict:

- You cannot change the roles on **your own** account, at all.
- You cannot grant or remove the **Super Admin** role unless you are a Super Admin.
- You cannot assign a role that ranks at or above your own highest role.
- In a default installation the underlying capability is held by Super Admin accounts only. For anyone else the **Assigned Roles** box still renders and still saves the rest of the form, but the role selection itself is ignored.

> **Tip:** If a role change appears not to have saved, check who made it. Have a Super Admin apply it, or grant the role-assignment capability deliberately from **Roles & Permissions**.

### The rank barrier

Every action on somebody else's account — opening a tab, saving the form, adjusting credit, deleting — is checked against the role hierarchy. You may only act on an account whose highest role sits strictly below your own. Customers hold the bottom-ranked client role, so all staff can manage them; a Billing Manager cannot touch an Administrator; nobody but a Super Admin can touch a Super Admin.

## Deleting a client

1. Use the kebab menu on the row in **All Users**, or the **Delete** button in the profile header.
2. Confirm the browser prompt. The deletion is immediate.

RackHelm refuses to delete a Super Admin account, refuses to let you delete your own account, and applies the rank barrier. Deleting a parent account also removes its sub-accounts, because those rows hang off the parent.

> **Warning:** Prefer cancelling services and letting the account sit dormant over deleting it. Orders and invoices are kept for audit when a package is removed, but deleting the account itself takes the person's sub-accounts and their whole sign-in history with it. Their addresses and stored payment methods are not cascaded — those rows are left behind pointing at an account that no longer exists.

## Troubleshooting

| Symptom | Cause and fix |
| --- | --- |
| "The email has already been taken." | The address exists on some account — often a guest row created by a support email, which the default list view hides. Check the **Guests** pill before creating a duplicate. |
| The customer cannot sign in after you changed their email. | Changing the address clears verification. They must click the verification link sent to the *new* address. |
| Roles did not change after saving. | You either edited your own account, tried to assign a role at or above your own rank, or do not hold the role-assignment capability. See "Who may change roles" above. |
| "You do not have permission to manage Super Admin accounts." | The target is a Super Admin. Only another Super Admin can act on it. |
| "Super Admin accounts cannot be deleted." | By design. Remove the Super Admin role first, from another Super Admin account. |
| The affiliate stopped earning commission after an edit. | The Contact tab cleared the affiliate flag. Generate a tracking code on the **Affiliate** tab to restore it. |