What is wrong with Apple Business Manager?

You'll need to contact Apple Support for assistance. Best practice is to have a service account as an administrator in case all user accounts get locked out.

Apple Business Manager provides tokens to connect Automated Device Enrollment to your MDM. It also allows you to centrally purchase apps so if an employee leaves, you can reclaim the license instead of having to purchase it again. It allows you to have central control of an Apple ID that manages your APNS certificate, and you can also control accounts that upload to iTunes, the App Store, and more.

A central account like you are using will eventually hit a maximum number of devices. It is also a security risk. If you are deploying Apple devices in your organization, I strongly encourage you to look into Mobile Device Management (MDM) platforms. They range widely in cost and available features. Some of the most popular MDM platforms are Jamf (Now and Pro), Mosyle, Fleetsmith, WorkspaceOne, and Kandji.

Purchasing an app with a single Apple ID for use on multiple devices by multiple people is a violation of the App Store terms of service and part of why Apple Business Manager exists.

You can read more about the purpose of Apple Business Manager at www.apple.com/business

Thank you, but contacting support seems quite impossible. I just keep getting sent in circles and this was my only option to get answers. I have no idea what an MDM is and I have seen nothing about tokens. We have a central Apple account that we use for the business already, so what is the advantage of Business manager? (I believe I will come up in this response as myself since I am answering from my home office today). I have also not seen a possibility to have a service account and being locked out, how could I set that up?

Apple offers 2 options to manage the devices (3 for iOS/iPadOS). The first is more of a proof of concept called Profile Manager. It is included with macOS Server. I don't recommend it. The second is called Fleetsmith. It is one of the more expensive MDM options. It's a good option. For iOS/iPadOS, there is a third option called Apple Configurator 2. This is similar to profile manager, but can run on any macOS device. It is good for very small deployments and is free.

Jamf Pro is considered the industry standard, but is among the most expensive. This is what I use. Jamf also has a cheaper option called Jamf Now. This solution is about half the price of Jamf Pro, but is cheaper at the expense of features.

Mosyle is one of the best offerings for features vs price. It's cheaper than both Jamf Pro and Jamf Now with a feature set that is just below Jamf Pro. It is nowhere near as intuitive however.

WorkspaceOne is on par with Mosyle but more expensive.

Kandji is a newcomer that is innovating very quickly. They are on par with Jamf Pro with a lower price.

For what it's worth, Apple was a Jamf Pro customer (they may still be, but I would expect them to transition over to Fleetsmith).

Thank you so much for the helpful explanation. We are a very small firm, but it's clear we need to get one of these platforms.

Happy to help! For a small business, Fleetsmith is free for the first 10 devices, and Jamf Now is free for the first 3. Mosyle also has a free option as well.