Select which brand workspace to open

If you work across more than one brand in MarginOS — as an agency, a consultant, a bookkeeper or a fractional CFO with several clients — you pick which brand to open each time you arrive. Sign in and the Select Workspace screen lists every client brand you belong to. Click Enter on one to go in. Once you are inside, that brand’s name sits at the top left of the screen next to a Switch button that takes you back to the list. MarginOS shows one brand at a time and never blends them, so the name in the header is the only thing you have to check before you read a number.

What the workspace chooser is

A workspace is everything MarginOS holds for one brand — its Shopify connection, its costs, its settings, its rules and its whole profit history. Workspaces are sealed off from each other. No revenue, no cost, no setting and no saved filter crosses from one to another, which is the point: two clients are two separate sets of books, and a number from one would quietly poison the other.

Most brand owners never meet this screen, because they belong to exactly one workspace and MarginOS simply opens it. The people who live in it are the ones working across a portfolio — agencies and growth consultants reporting on several accounts, accountants and bookkeepers closing more than one set of books, and fractional CFOs, CMOs and COOs who sit inside three or four brands in the same week.

You get there one way: an administrator at each brand invites you into theirs. You cannot add yourself, and you cannot merge two brands into a single view. See Invite a teammate for what your client does at their end.

Once you belong to more than one, MarginOS stops guessing. It will not open the app until it knows which brand you mean, because every figure on every screen is scoped to one workspace and showing you the wrong client’s margins is worse than showing you none.

Before you start

• You need access to at least two workspaces for any of this to appear. With one, the chooser and the Switch button are both hidden.
• You cannot join a brand from inside MarginOS. An administrator at that brand invites you, and removes you the same way when the engagement ends.
• There is no all-clients dashboard. MarginOS works one brand at a time, so comparing two clients means switching between them rather than opening a combined view.
• Your choice is remembered in the browser you made it in. Sign in on a different computer, a different browser, or a private window, and you will be asked again.
• Switching is a change to your own view and nothing else. It does not move data, does not alter either brand, and nobody at either client is notified.

Switch to a different workspace

1. Look at the top left of the screen. After the word MarginOS you will see the name of the brand you are currently in.
2. Click Switch, just to the right of that name. If there is no Switch button there, you belong to only one workspace and there is nothing to switch to.
3. MarginOS reloads and shows the Select Workspace screen, headed “Choose the brand organization you want to access”.
4. Read the cards. There is one per client brand you belong to, showing its name, your role in it, and its status.
5. Click Enter followed by the brand name on the card you want. Clicking anywhere else on the card does exactly the same thing.
6. MarginOS opens that brand and takes you to its Command Center.
7. Glance at the brand name at the top left to confirm you are in the client you meant, before you read a number or copy one into a report.

There is no save step and nothing to undo. Switch back the same way whenever you like.

What each part of the screen shows

What you see	What it means	What to do with it
Building icon and brand name	The brand this workspace holds. MarginOS takes this name from the Shopify store when the store is connected, so it should read the way that client’s store reads.	Your fastest check that you are about to open the right client’s books.
Grey badge on the left of the card	Your role in that workspace, shown exactly as it is stored: admin or member.	Tells you what you will be able to change once inside. See the FAQ below on why this wording differs from Account Setup.
Coloured badge on the right of the card	The workspace’s own status. It should read active, in green.	Green and active is the only state you should ever see. Anything else, shown in red, means that brand has been put on hold — contact us.
Enter plus the brand name	The button that opens that workspace.	Click it, or click anywhere on the card.
“Need access to a different brand? Contact your administrator.”	The note under the cards.	A reminder that joining a client brand is something that brand’s administrator does for you, never something you can do here.
Logged in as, top right	The name on the Google account you signed in with.	If that is not you, click Sign Out and sign back in with the right Google account — this matters on a shared machine.
Sign Out, top right	Ends your MarginOS session entirely.	Use it to leave. It does not remove you from any workspace.

How MarginOS decides which workspace to open

Five rules, applied in order, every time you arrive:

• You belong to exactly one workspace. MarginOS opens it, every time, without asking. The chooser never appears and no Switch button is drawn. This is the case for most brand owners, which is why the screen is unfamiliar to them.
• You belong to several and have not chosen yet. You get the chooser.
• You belong to several and chose one earlier in this browser. MarginOS opens straight into it and skips the chooser. That is why the screen seems to vanish after your first visit.
• You chose one earlier but no longer have access to it. MarginOS discards the stale choice and asks again. This is what you see the morning after a client offboards you.
• You belong to none at all. You get No Workspace Found instead, which is covered in Create your MarginOS account.

There is one deliberate exception, and it is the one that matters when you take on a new client. Open an invitation link while you are already inside another client and MarginOS takes you straight to that invitation rather than stopping you at the chooser — otherwise accepting a new brand would mean abandoning the one you are in first.

Example

Dana is a fractional CFO with three clients on MarginOS. Each brand’s own administrator invited her: Harbour Goods and Ridgeline Coffee made her a Business Admin, while Velo Supply added her as a member. She belongs to three workspaces, and her role can differ in each one — Express Setup, for instance, answers a member with “Access Restricted”. Invite a teammate covers what each role can do.

On Monday she signs in on her laptop. Because she has never chosen on this laptop, MarginOS shows Select Workspace with three cards — Harbour Goods badged admin and active, Ridgeline Coffee badged admin and active, Velo Supply badged member and active. She clicks Enter Harbour Goods and lands in its Command Center. The header now reads “MarginOS • Harbour Goods” with a Switch button beside it.

At eleven she has a board call for Ridgeline. She clicks Switch, the chooser returns, she clicks Enter Ridgeline Coffee, and every number on screen is now Ridgeline’s. Harbour Goods is untouched, and nobody at either brand saw anything happen. The header is what tells her which set of books she is about to read aloud.

That evening she opens MarginOS on her phone. The phone has never been asked, so it asks now — the laptop’s choice does not travel. She picks Ridgeline Coffee there, and the phone remembers that from then on while the laptop stays on Harbour Goods.

In June the Velo Supply engagement ends and their administrator removes her. At her next sign-in that card is simply gone, and if she had been sitting inside Velo Supply, MarginOS would have returned her to the chooser instead.

FAQ

I work with one brand only. Why do I never see this screen?

Because there is nothing to ask you. When you belong to exactly one workspace MarginOS opens it directly, and hides both the chooser and the Switch button. That is deliberate: a choice with one option is not a choice, it is an extra click on every sign-in.

Can I see all my clients side by side in one dashboard?

No. MarginOS works one brand at a time, on purpose — there is no combined view, no portfolio roll-up and no cross-client total anywhere in the product. Comparing two clients means opening one, reading it, then switching to the other. The upside is the one that matters in this line of work: no figure can ever leak from one client into another brand’s screen or report.

Where is the Switch button?

Top left of every screen, immediately after the brand name, in small grey capitals. It only exists if you belong to more than one workspace. If you expected one and cannot find it, you almost certainly belong to a single brand — check the name shown there against the client you think you were invited to.

Does switching workspace change anything for my client or their team?

No. Switching changes which brand your own browser is looking at, and nothing else. No data moves, neither brand is altered, nobody is signed out or notified, and no record of the switch appears anywhere they can see. What your client can see is that you hold access at all — your name sits in their team list from the moment they invite you, exactly as it does for their own staff.

I switched workspace on my laptop. Why is my phone still on the other client?

Because the choice is stored in the browser that made it, not against your account. Each browser, device and private window keeps its own answer, and a browser that has never been asked will ask the first time you sign in there. That is usually helpful — a laptop parked on one client and a phone on another is a legitimate way to work. Clearing your browser data clears the choice, which is harmless: you simply pick again.

Why does the card say admin when Account Setup says Business Admin?

They are the same role, written two ways. MarginOS calls the administrator role Business Admin in Account Setup and in the invitation dialog, but the workspace chooser card and the “Logged in as” line in the header print the underlying value instead, which is the lowercase word admin. Nothing is different about your access. We know the wording is inconsistent and it is on our list to make uniform.

What does the green or red badge on a workspace card mean?

It is the status of the workspace itself, not of you. In normal operation it reads active and is green, and that is what everybody sees. A red badge means that brand has been placed on hold and its data will not be usable until that is resolved — if a client card shows one, contact us rather than trying to fix it from inside the app.

A client workspace disappeared from my list. What happened?

That brand removed your access, which is what an administrator there does at the end of an engagement. The chooser lists exactly the workspaces you currently belong to, so a card vanishing is the offboarding showing up rather than a fault. If you were inside that workspace at the time, your remembered choice stops being valid and MarginOS returns you to the chooser at your next sign-in. Ask that brand’s administrator to invite you again if it was a mistake.

Related

• Invite a teammate — what your client does to give you access, and what each role can do; send it to them
• Create your MarginOS account — your first sign-in, and what “No Workspace Found” means before any client has invited you
• Set up MarginOS: the 3-step Express Setup — what a newly opened workspace asks you for
• Connect your Shopify store — one store per workspace, and where the brand name comes from
• Set your store-wide COGS, shipping and pick-pack fallbacks — settings are held per workspace, never shared between brands
• Read the Command Center — where entering a workspace lands you
• Account and billing — everything else about accounts and access