Roles let you define responsibilities (e.g., Bookkeeper, Tax Preparer) and attach the right people or teams to client records and tasks. Tasks now have separate Roles and Assignees fields, so you can assign by role and still add one-off assignees when needed.
Plan required — Canopy Pro
Roles are available on Canopy Pro. If you don’t see Settings > Team Organization > Roles or the Roles field on tasks, your firm isn’t on Pro. To use Roles, please upgrade to Canopy Pro (contact your account owner or Support).
Why it matters
Keep client work moving even if someone is out—roles map work to a function, not a single person.
Assign once at the client record and reuse across tasks and templates.
Use roles to staff recurring work without manual reassignments.
Support pooled work: assign tasks to a role (e.g., Bookkeeper) so any available role member can pick it up; roster changes won’t require manual reassignment.
Table of Contents
Understand Roles (common use cases)
Match work types: Bookkeeper, Auditor, Tax Preparer (Jr./Sr.), Payroll, Partner, Client Relationship Director.
Team-based delivery: Assign a team (e.g., 1 bookkeeper + 1 tax preparer) to a client on full-suite services.
Resilience for small firms: Prevent work from stalling—role members share responsibility, so no manual reassignment if someone is unavailable.
Navigate the Roles tab
Click your profile picture/initials (bottom-left).
Select Settings.
Go to Team Organization.
Click the Roles tab.
Review the three columns:
Role — role name.
Date Created — who created it and when.
Applied To — number of client records using this role.
Use the three stacked dots to Edit or Delete a role.
Create a Role
In Settings > Team Organization > Roles, click Create role (top-right).
Enter a Role name.
Click Save.
Assign a Role from a Client Record
Open a Client Record.
Click the blue Manage Assignments button (top-right).
Select the team members you want associated with each role.
Click Save.
Saving here links the selected team members to the client’s roles for use across tasks and templates.
Bulk Assign Roles from the Client List
Go to Client List.
Check the boxes next to one or more clients.
Next to the folder icon (top-right), click the three stacked dots.
Select Manage assignments.
Add the team members you want for the role(s).
Click Save to apply to all selected clients.
Edit or Delete a Role
In Settings > Team Organization > Roles, click the three stacked dots next to a role.
Select Edit or Delete.
Edit - Change the Role name, then click Save.
Delete - A pop up appears with a message: “This role is currently assigned to (X) users and (X) team on (X) client records. All users assigned to this role will maintain access to client records, but they will no longer be associated with this role.” Click Confirm to delete.
How Roles interact with Tasks (Roles vs. Assignees)
When you create or edit a task, you’ll notice two separate fields: Roles and Assignees.
What’s important:
Roles and Assignees are separate.
Adding a Role will auto-add all role members to Assignees.
Removing a Role will remove those role-based assignees.
Role-based assignees on a task can’t be removed individually. (They’re controlled by the role.)
You can still add one-off assignees (users not tied to the selected roles).
You can assign multiple roles to the same task.
Control the auto-assignment behavior
When you add a role, you’ll see a checkbox: Set role members as assignees.
Checked (default): Role members are added to Assignees and stay in sync with role changes.
Unchecked: You can assign the role label on the task without auto-adding its members. Changing the role later won’t change assignees.
Subtasks and Client Requests
You can apply the same pattern to subtasks and client requests (and optionally Assign to all subtasks and client requests to push assignees down).
Best practices
Use roles to staff repeatable work (monthly books, payroll, recurring filings).
Add one-off assignees for exceptions (e.g., reviewer needed this month only).
Leave Set role members as assignees checked for most teams; uncheck when you need the role label for reporting but want to hand-pick the people.
Troubleshooting
I can’t remove a specific assignee that came from a role.
Remove the Role (or uncheck Set role members as assignees when adding the role). Then add individuals manually.Assignees changed after I updated the Role’s members.
That’s expected with Set role members as assignees checked—the task stays in sync with the role.Subtasks didn’t get the people I expected.
Make sure you checked Assign to all subtasks after setting assignees on the parent task.
Summary
Roles connect client work to functions (bookkeeping, tax prep, etc.) so you can assign the right people quickly and keep work moving. With the new Roles vs. Assignees separation on tasks, you get both the scale of role-based staffing and the flexibility to add individuals when needed.
Need Help?
Contact Support or ask Penny, our AI Support Bot, for assistance.