diff --git a/PROCESS.rst b/PROCESS.rst
index 62c1c8a9e9..c436958a57 100644
--- a/PROCESS.rst
+++ b/PROCESS.rst
@@ -81,14 +81,14 @@ Between Milestone-2 and Milestone-3
       generated (for all release:cycle-with-milestones deliverables)
       with::
 
-        tox -e aclmanager -- acls /path/to/openstack-infra/project-config $series
+        tox -e aclmanager -- acls /path/to/openstack-infra/project-config
 
    2. Set the population of all $project-release-branch groups to the
       "Release Managers" group and $project-release. This can be done
       (for all release:cycle-with-milestones deliverables) by running
       ``aclmanager.py``::
 
-        tox -e aclmanager -- groups pre_release $series $user
+        tox -e aclmanager -- groups pre_release $user
 
       ($user being your Gerrit username)
 
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index f00c38ea6e..230780ea0d 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -483,7 +483,7 @@ To create the ACL patch for stable/newton:
 
 ::
 
-  tox -e aclmanager -- acls ~/branches/openstack-infra/project-config newton
+  tox -e aclmanager -- --series newton acls ~/branches/openstack-infra/project-config
 
 To set the pre-release group membership:
 
diff --git a/tools/aclmanager.py b/tools/aclmanager.py
index 5dfa94beb1..ca7d1fc704 100755
--- a/tools/aclmanager.py
+++ b/tools/aclmanager.py
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ from requests.packages import urllib3
 import yaml
 
 import openstack_releases
+from openstack_releases import defaults
 from openstack_releases import deliverable
 
 # Turn of warnings about bad SSL config.
@@ -183,6 +184,11 @@ def main(args=sys.argv[1:]):
         default=openstack_releases.deliverable_dir,
         help='location of deliverable files',
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        '--series',
+        default=defaults.RELEASE,
+        help='release series to use for repo/team membership',
+    )
     subparsers = parser.add_subparsers(title='commands')
 
     do_acls = subparsers.add_parser(
@@ -191,9 +197,6 @@ def main(args=sys.argv[1:]):
     do_acls.add_argument(
         'repository',
         help='location of the local project-config repository')
-    do_acls.add_argument(
-        'series',
-        help='series to generate ACL for')
     do_acls.set_defaults(func=patch_acls)
 
     do_groups = subparsers.add_parser(
@@ -203,9 +206,6 @@ def main(args=sys.argv[1:]):
         'stage',
         choices=['pre_release', 'post_release'],
         help='type of modification to push')
-    do_groups.add_argument(
-        'series',
-        help='series to modify groups for')
     do_groups.add_argument(
         'username',
         help='gerrit HTTP username')