Account Contacts — Owner & Billing contact
Account contacts let you choose who on your team is the point of contact for this account. You set two roles — an Owner and a Billing contact — so account notices and invoices reach the right person instead of going to everyone.
You'll find this under Settings → User Management, in the Account contacts card at the top of the page.
What this is for
Every account has things that should go to a specific person, not the whole team:
- Account notices (status changes, important updates) → the Owner.
- Invoices and billing → the Billing contact.
Setting these two roles also controls who can open the Billing section (plans, invoices, payment method): only the Owner and the Billing contact — plus Routy staff — can see and manage Billing. Everyone else won't see the Billing menu at all.
Who can change contacts
Only an account owner / admin can set the Owner and Billing contact.
If you have permission to manage users but you're not an account owner/admin, you'll still use User Management normally — you just won't see the Account contacts card. That's expected: managing team members and choosing account contacts are two different permissions.
The happy path — setting your contacts
- Go to Settings → User Management.
- In the Account contacts card, you'll see two dropdowns.
- Owner — pick the team member who should be the primary contact.
- Billing contact — pick the team member who should receive invoices and manage billing.
- Click Save.
Each dropdown lists the people on your account's team. To leave a role empty, use the clear (×) control in the dropdown — that removes whoever was set.
Owner
The Owner is the primary contact for account notices. The Owner also gets access to the Billing section.
Billing contact
The Billing contact receives invoices and can manage the Billing section (plans, payment method, invoices). Use this when the person who pays the bills is different from the person who runs the account day to day.
Good to know — billing access takes effect on next sign-in
When you make someone the Owner or Billing contact, their access to the Billing section is granted the next time they sign in — not instantly. If a newly chosen contact doesn't see Billing yet, ask them to sign out and back in.
Common questions
"I don't see the Account contacts card." Only account owners/admins can manage contacts. If you can manage users but aren't an owner/admin, the card is hidden for you — this is by design, not a bug.
"I set a new Billing contact but they still can't open Billing." Billing access is assigned at sign-in. Have them sign out and back in.
"Saving shows 'The selected user is not a member of this account.'" The person you picked isn't on this account's team. Add them as a team member first (in User Management), then set them as a contact.
"Saving shows 'You do not have permission to change account contacts.'" Your account doesn't have owner/admin rights for contacts. Ask an account owner/admin to make the change.
"The User Management tab is greyed out / unavailable." That's a different thing from contacts: it means either your plan doesn't include User Management, or you don't have the manage-users permission. Contact your account owner or Routy support about your plan.
"Nobody on our account can upgrade the plan." If no Owner and no Billing contact are set, nobody can open Billing — and if User Management is itself locked by your plan, you can't set them yourself. Contact Routy support and we'll set the Owner for you. See the Plans & Billing access guide.
For support agents — setting contacts on behalf of an account
From Sys Admin → Affiliates → [the account] → Users, the Account contacts card appears at the top of the Users tab, scoped to that account. Staff can review and set the Owner / Billing contact there without logging in as the customer.
If a save is blocked with a permission error while you're acting on an account, that's a server-side authorization rule — escalate to engineering rather than retrying.
When to escalate to engineering
- A contact is set correctly but the right notices/invoices still aren't reaching them.
- A Billing contact has signed out and back in and still can't see Billing.
- Saving fails with an unexpected error (not one of the messages above).