How do I hide watch cost from sales staff?

Why hiding a column isn't enough

Most dealers who want to hide cost have the same worry: a salesperson who knows what you paid for the piece will quote the customer off your cost instead of your ask. Or a wholesale number leaks to a retail client. In a shared spreadsheet the usual fix is to hide a column, and anyone who knows how to unhide it, sort by it or export the file gets it straight back.

Real price privacy means the number never reaches that person's screen at all. The software has to leave it out of what it sends, not just draw a box over it. That is how WatchFlow handles it.

The three price switches

WatchFlow's role and per-person permission editor has a group called Prices with three toggles:

• See cost: what you paid for the piece.
• See retail price: the asking price.
• See wholesale price: your dealer price.

Each role starts with sensible defaults:

• Admin and manager see all three.
• Sales sees retail and wholesale, never cost.
• Viewer sees retail and wholesale.
• Runner sees cost only on the pieces they bought themselves, and no retail or wholesale.

The owner can change any role, and a per-person setting beats the role. So if one senior salesperson should see wholesale but a new hire shouldn't, you switch it off for the new hire alone. The full picture of what each seat can do is in team roles and permissions for watch dealers.

What "hidden" actually means here

The check happens on the server, before anything is sent to the person's phone or browser. When someone doesn't have a price permission:

• That price is removed from inventory lists, stock totals, the dashboard and search results.
• Sorting or filtering by that price is refused, so they can't work it out by ordering the list.
• Their CSV export drops the column.
• Their edits can't blank out a price they can't see, so saving a watch doesn't wipe your cost.
• Profit and margin are hidden along with cost, since either one would give cost away.

Setting it up before you invite anyone

The defaults already keep cost away from sales, so for many shops there is nothing to change. If your setup is different, work through it in this order:

• Decide who needs cost at all. Usually that's you, a manager, and whoever buys for you. Everyone else can do their job from retail and wholesale.
• Check the Prices group on each role. Leave See cost off for sales and viewers. If retail-facing staff shouldn't quote dealer prices, switch See wholesale price off for that role too.
• Handle the exceptions per person. A senior salesperson who does trade deals can get wholesale back without changing the whole sales role.
• Then invite the teammate. They log in to a list that already matches what they're allowed to see.

Runners are the one seat that sees cost without seeing retail or wholesale. That's on purpose: they're the person typing in what they paid, and without cost access that figure would be dropped when they save. They only ever see their own acquisitions, so they can't browse the rest of your book's cost.

What your salesperson still sees

Hiding cost shouldn't make the job harder. In the watch inventory management software, the list shows only the columns a person is allowed: for a salesperson that means Retail and Wholesale but no Cost column, and a runner sees just the photo and the watch. The stock-worth card counts value at cost, at retail target and at wholesale target, the three views explained in how to value watch inventory, and each person only gets the figures their permissions allow.

Salespeople can still add and edit watches, list them, work deals and create invoices. Your wholesale price stays visible to sales by default, so if you send dealer pricing out as wholesale price lists, switch See wholesale price off for anyone who shouldn't quote it.

What it does and doesn't do

Price permissions control what each seat can see inside WatchFlow. They don't stop someone from writing a number down once they've been allowed to see it, so set the defaults before you invite anyone. Roles and per-person settings apply to teammates, so you need a team (multi-seat) account; see pricing for the plans. The owner always keeps full access. It's one part of the wider watch dealer software, not a separate add-on.