Set up Delegate

Where: OnAccount admin + Shopify admin (customer accounts, theme, checkout) Who: Merchant admin Part of: Delegate — B2B self-service

This page turns Delegate on and wires up everything it needs. Steps 1 and 2 apply to every Delegate setup. Steps 3 and 4 are only needed for the Purchase rules & approvals module — they're what make approvals bind at the storefront and checkout. If you're only using Staff management or Payments, you can stop after Step 2. The app's home-page onboarding checklist carries the same steps.

Set it up

Step 1 — Turn on Delegate and assign a company admin

1. Open the app and go to Delegate.
2. Choose an activation level:

• Disabled — off for everyone (the kill switch; leaves existing B2B orders untouched).
• Manual — off by default; you opt companies in one at a time. Recommended for a controlled rollout.
• Enabled for all companies — every B2B company can self-serve.

3. If you chose Manual, open the company directory and opt in the companies you want to govern.
4. For each opted-in company, assign a company admin — the contact who will manage staff, rules, and approvals. Staff and rules need an admin; a company with no admin simply can't manage those. Payments is the exception — it works through Finance contacts (or the merchant) even when a company has no admin, so a company you only want to collect payment from never needs one. See Payments without a company admin.

The Delegate settings page: activation level and company directory.

A company's detail page with the company-admin assignment.

You can change the activation level, opt companies out, or revoke an admin at any time. Flipping to Disabled halts enforcement immediately and hides every console; flipping back restores the prior scope.

Step 2 — Add the Delegate console to customer accounts

This is the page your admins, approvers, and buyers use. It lives in customer accounts.

1. Shopify admin → Settings → Checkout → Customize, then select your customer-account profile from the dropdown at the top of the editor (this is the customer-account editor).
2. Activate the Delegate page extension.
3. Then make it reachable — pick one:

• Add the Delegate page to your B2B market's navigation (menu), or
• Add the Delegate nav block to the profile page, which shows each person only the links they're allowed (their staff console, approval queue, or their own requests).

Either route works; the nav block is the lighter-touch option because it appears automatically on the profile page and adapts to each buyer's permissions.

The customer-account editor with the Delegate page activated.

The Delegate nav block on the profile page.

Step 3 — Turn on the Delegate gate theme embed (Purchase rules & approvals only)

This is what buyers see in the storefront, and the first half of enforcement. Skip it if no company uses the Purchase rules & approvals module.

1. Shopify admin → Online Store → Themes → Customize on your live theme.
2. In the theme editor, click App embeds (the puzzle-piece icon).
3. Enable the OnAccount Delegate gate embed.
4. Click Save.

The embed is invisible on ordinary carts. For a governed B2B buyer it shows an approval banner when a rule fires and — critically — provides the Submit for approval button. Without it there is no way to submit a cart.

The App embeds panel with "OnAccount Delegate gate" enabled.

Step 4 — Add the Delegate checkout rule (Purchase rules & approvals only)

The server-side backstop. It's what stops a determined buyer from skipping the wall at checkout (including express checkouts like Shop Pay). Skip it if no company uses the Purchase rules & approvals module.

1. Shopify admin → Settings → Checkout.
2. Under Checkout rules, click Add rule.
3. Select the delegate-validation rule.
4. Give it a name, set its status to Active, and save.

The delegate-validation rule set to Active under Checkout rules.

Choose which features each company gets (feature modules)

Delegate is split into three feature modules. You decide which ones a company gets — everything else (audit logging) is always on for whatever you grant.

You control modules at two levels, exactly like Delegate's activation itself:

• Shop-level defaults — on the Delegate settings page, the Feature modules (defaults) section has one switch per module. This is what every in-scope company gets unless you override it. All three ship on, so existing companies keep today's behavior (plus Payments) with no action from you.
• Per-company override — on a company's page, set each module to Inherit (follow the shop default), On, or Off. An override always wins over the default, in either direction, until you set it back to Inherit.

A company's effective modules are its overrides where set, otherwise the shop defaults — and the company directory shows each company's effective modules as badges. Turning a module off hides its surfaces and stops its behavior for everyone, admins included; turning it back on restores the prior configuration (rules, assignments, the statement recipient list) without re-entry. A module your plan doesn't include can't take effect no matter how it's set. Every default and override change lands in your store-wide audit log.

The Feature modules (defaults) switches on the Delegate settings page.

A company's page with per-module Inherit / On / Off overrides.

Payments without a company admin

Because Payments stands on its own, a company can pay you without ever self-governing. For an in-scope company with the Payments module on and no company admin:

• Assign a Finance contact (see The Finance role) — they reach the Payments tab and settle invoices; nothing else is reachable.
• You manage that company's statement recipient list from its page — the admin-only console configuration simply isn't needed.
• Staff and rule management stay unavailable (there's no admin to hold them), and a plain staff member with no Finance role sees no console at all.

Assign a company admin later and the governance surfaces appear for them, with no change to the finance contact's experience.

Updated on: 01/09/2026