Understand user roles and permission levels in ORCA, how to maintain the need-to-know principle across vaults, and how to promote team members.
Role Overview
ORCA uses a two-tiered permission model to balance organization-wide administration with vault-level confidentiality:
- Account-Level Roles (Account Owner & Admin): Control global account settings, user invitations, subscription billing, and vault provisioning across the entire account.
- Vault-Level Roles (Editor & Reader): Control access to specific family branches or portfolio entities. A team member can hold different permissions in different vaults (for example, Editor in Vault A and Reader in Vault B).
Permission Comparison Matrix
Capability | Account Owner | Admin | Editor | Reader |
View structures, cards, and files | Yes | Yes | Yes (assigned vaults) | Yes (assigned vaults) |
Export data and download documents | Yes | Yes | Yes (assigned vaults) | Yes (assigned vaults) |
Create and edit entities, transactions, and events | Yes | Yes | Yes (assigned vaults) | No |
Upload files via web interface or Sonar | Yes | Yes | Yes (assigned vaults) | No |
Upload files via email | Yes | Yes | Yes (if sender email matches) | No |
Invite, edit, or remove users | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Promote users to Admin | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Create, rename, or archive vaults | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Manage billing and subscriptions | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Delete the account | Yes | No | No | No |
Account-Level Roles
Account Owner
The Account Owner holds ultimate authority over the ORCA subscription:
- Only one Account Owner exists per organization.
- Cannot be removed or downgraded by other Admins.
- Has full access to all vaults, user management, and billing.
Admin
Admins assist with team administration across the organization:
- Can create, archive, and manage all vaults.
- Can invite new users, assign vault permissions, and promote members to Admin.
- Can configure organization-wide security settings, such as mandatory 2FA.
- Cannot delete or remove the Account Owner.
How to Promote a User to Admin
- Open the user menu and select Account Administration.
- Click on Users in the left sidebar.
- Select the user you wish to promote to open their User details.
- Change the Role dropdown from Member to Admin and save.
Once promoted, the user gains access to all vaults and can manage users across the account.
Vault-Level Roles
Editor
Editors manage day-to-day entity records and documentation within specific vaults:
- Can create and modify entities, cap tables, ownership events, liabilities, and roles.
- Can upload files, run Sonar AI extractions, and edit details.
- Cannot invite other users or modify vault settings.
Reader
Readers have read-only access designed for family principals, board members, or external advisors:
- Can navigate structure charts, inspect entity detail cards, and download files.
- Can export reports and toggle saved views.
- Cannot edit data, upload files, or view vault administrative settings.
Email Upload Permission Rules
The Email Upload feature allows users to forward documents directly into an ORCA vault. For security, the following restrictions apply:
- Role Requirement: Only Account Owners, Admins, and Editors with access to that vault can upload files via email. Reader accounts cannot upload via email.
- Authorized Senders: The sender email address must match the user's registered ORCA login email. Emails sent from non-whitelisted addresses are rejected automatically.