Creating a Custom Role

Overview

Available on Ramp Plus. See Ramp Plus overview for plan details.

Ramp allows Plus admins to create Custom Roles by duplicating an existing system role and tailoring it to your organization's needs, or by creating a new role from scratch. This gives your company more flexibility and control over how you assign responsibilities, without altering global settings for all users with that role.

Video walkthrough: Create a Custom Role in Ramp by selecting the exact permissions an Employee needs. Best for admins tailoring access without changing a built-in role. Watch the video.

What is a Custom Role?

A Custom Role is a role you create by starting with an existing role (like Accounting or IT Admin), then renaming it and adjusting its available permissions, or by starting from scratch and selecting from the available permissions.

Custom Roles are add-on roles — they are assigned alongside a user's base role, not instead of it. The user keeps all permissions from their base role and gains additional permissions from the Custom Role. For more on how roles combine, see User Roles Overview.

This is helpful if you want:

• Two versions of the same role (e.g., one Accounting role that can sync to your accounting system, and another who cannot)
• To create more specific roles like "Travel Manager" or "Vendor Approver"
• To support separation of duties (for example, one person creates bills, another approves them)

Looking to edit the permissions of a built-in role instead? See Customizing Roles and Permissions.

How to create a Custom Role

By duplicating an existing role

1. Open Roles & permissions.
2. Choose a role to start from — Select an existing Ramp role as your starting point (like Accounting or Accounts Payable).
3. Customize the role:

• Give your role a new name and description .
• Review and toggle the available permissions. Editable permissions are shown with green checkboxes. Permissions that cannot be changed are grayed out.
• Click Save changes .

From scratch

1. Open Roles & permissions.
2. Click Create custom role .
3. Customize the role:

• Give your role a new name and description .
• Review and toggle the available permissions.
• Click Save changes .

Managing or updating a Custom Role

Your Custom Roles are visible in Roles & permissions.

From there, you can:

• Edit the name, description, or permissions
• Duplicate a role to create a variation
• Delete a Custom Role

To grant a Custom Role based on group membership, create the role from scratch and assign it to a group.

Note: You cannot delete a Custom Role that is assigned to a user or group. Remove the Custom Role from directly assigned users. For a group assignment, clear the group's Custom Role field before deleting the role.

See more on Procurement Custom Role, Vendor Custom Role.

Troubleshooting

I don't see "Create custom role"

Custom Role creation requires Ramp Plus and the Edit permissions of roles permission. Admins and Owners have this permission by default.

I created a Custom Role but can't assign it

Custom Roles can only be assigned to users with Employee, Accounting, or IT Admin as their base role. Admin, Owner, and Guest users cannot receive custom add-on roles.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between a Custom Role and editing a role's permissions?

When you edit a role's permissions, the changes apply to all users with that role. A Custom Role is a separate role, so its permission changes affect only users who hold that Custom Role, not every user with the original built-in role. For details on editing built-in role permissions, see Customizing Roles and Permissions.

Who can receive a Custom Role?

Custom Roles can be assigned to users with an Employee, Accounting, or IT Admin base role. Admin, Owner, and Guest users cannot receive custom add-on roles.