This guide explains how to set up Deputy for a veterinary clinic. Deputy brings scheduling, attendance, payroll, communication, and reporting together in one place. It covers how to structure Locations and Areas, manage team access, prepare payroll workflows, review scheduling and attendance settings, and plan your rollout.

Before you read

Target audience: This article is for users with System Administrator access.
Free trial: If you haven't signed up for Deputy yet, see Creating an Organization and Getting Started with a Free Trial. When signing up, select the industry that best matches your business.
Returning to your trial: If you've already signed up, log in at once.deputy.com to continue setting up your account.
Watch Deputy in Action: Before you start, watch Deputy in Action to see how Deputy works and what you'll be setting up throughout this guide.

This article covers:

Choose your organisational structure
Review Location settings before rollout
Set access and approval responsibilities
Prepare payroll and scheduling workflows
- Qualifications, Training Tags, and reporting
Run day-to-day veterinary workflows
Quick add-on and plan check
Five-step onboarding checklist
Avoid common veterinary clinic set-up mistakes
Get more help

Choose your organisational structure

In Deputy, Locations usually represent clinics, hospitals, branches, or departments that need separate approval boundaries. Areas usually represent departments, roles, or coverage groups, such as vet, nurse, reception, surgery, kennels, grooming, after-hours, or emergency.

Choose a starting model that reflects how your clinic manages rosters, coverage, approvals, reporting, payroll export codes, and clinic access.

Business type	Suggested starting structure	Veterinary Area examples	Things to consider
Single clinic General practice, grooming clinics, and small animal clinics	One Location representing the clinic	Vet, Nurse, Reception, Surgery, Kennels, Grooming, and After-hours	This keeps clinic-level scheduling, kiosk clock-in, approvals, and reporting together.
Large animal hospital Hospitals with separate managers or specialist teams	Department as the Location only when separate approval boundaries are needed	Surgery, Emergency, ICU, Nursing, Reception, Kennels, and Specialist	This can improve permission separation, but may make whole-hospital visibility harder.
Multi-clinic group Groups with several clinics or branches	One Location for each clinic	Vet, Nurse, Reception, Surgery, Kennels, Grooming, and Emergency	Shared staff need access to each clinic where they may work.
Emergency or after-hours service Emergency vets, after-hours support, and on-call teams	Clinic or emergency department as the Location, with Areas for coverage types	Emergency, After-hours, On-call, Vet, Nurse, Reception, and Surgery	After-hours work should be tested carefully before rollout.

When you plan your structure, consider:

Coverage visibility: Areas are usually the cleanest way to show vet, nurse, reception, surgery, kennel, grooming, and after-hours coverage.
Shared staff: Team members who work across multiple clinics need access to each relevant Location.
Reporting and export codes: Consistent Area names and export codes can support payroll, accounting, and labour reporting workflows.

For a complete overview, see Organisations, Locations and Areas.

Review Location settings before rollout

Location settings control many of the defaults used for scheduling, clock-in, timesheets, approvals, and reporting. Review these settings before go-live so each clinic, hospital, branch, or department works the way your team expects.

Key settings to review include:

Review the physical address and map pin: Accurate clinic details help with kiosk setup and reporting.
Review Areas and Training Tags: Areas can represent vets, nurses, reception, surgery, kennels, grooming, after-hours, emergency, or on-call coverage. Training Tags can help manage clinical qualifications, surgery suitability, emergency coverage, and role-specific skills.
Review scheduling settings: Confirm default shifts, breaks, shift swaps, shift offers, open shifts, notifications, and shift locking.
Review timesheet settings: Confirm kiosk or tablet clock-in, photo capture, employee timesheet edits, break settings, rounding, timesheet auto-approval, and unscheduled shifts.

Most veterinary clinics use kiosk or tablet clock-in with photo capture. The mobile app is still useful for viewing rosters, availability, leave requests, and updates.

For a complete overview of every Location setting, including General, Areas, Scheduling, Timesheets, Notifications, Public Holidays, and Preferences, see Creating your Locations.

Set access and approval responsibilities

Access decisions should be made during set-up. The right access model helps managers control scheduling, timesheet approvals, payroll visibility, labour cost access, clinic coverage, and reporting.

Veterinary role	Recommended Deputy access	Common responsibility
Vets, nurses, reception, kennel, and grooming staff	Employee	View rosters, clock in and out, request leave, and review updates
Head nurses and team leads	Supervisor	Review daily coverage, attendance, breaks, and exceptions without unnecessary wage visibility
Practice managers	Location Manager	Manage rosters, approvals, labour visibility, and reporting
Payroll and bookkeepers	Advisor	Review approved timesheets, payroll exports, and employee records
Owners and administrators	System Administrator	Manage account settings, structure, integrations, and access

Most veterinary clinics use Supervisor access for head nurses or team leads who approve time but should not see wage costs. Use Location Manager access for practice managers who need labour cost visibility, roster cost visibility, and approvals.

For a complete overview, see Deputy access levels and permissions.

Once you've set access levels, add your team members and assign them to the Locations where they work. For a complete overview, see Adding team members.

Prepare payroll and scheduling workflows

Veterinary payroll can include salaried vets, hourly nurses and reception teams, after-hours work, emergency shifts, on-call arrangements, overtime, missed breaks, public holidays, and leave. Pay Templates and Pay Rate Builder can support your pay conditions, while Leave Policies control the types of leave available to team members and how leave is managed in Deputy.

You can process payroll using Deputy Payroll where available, or connect Deputy to a supported third-party payroll provider.

Click to expand for each payroll option.

Deputy Payroll (AU)

Deputy Payroll (AU) is Deputy's integrated payroll option for Australian businesses. It keeps scheduling, attendance, approved timesheets, and payroll within Deputy, so you can move from worked hours to a pay run without exporting timesheets to a separate payroll provider.

Set-up includes your business and payroll details, pay calendars, superannuation, deductions, extra earnings, and team member payroll information.

For a complete overview of setting up and using Deputy Payroll (AU), see Getting started with Payroll (AU).

Deputy Payroll enabled by Paycor (US)

Deputy Payroll enabled by Paycor (US) connects Deputy workforce management with Paycor payroll. Deputy manages scheduling, time tracking, leave, pay rates, and approved timesheets, while Paycor can be used to handle payroll functions such as tax filings, banking, and year-end processing.

Approved timesheets can be exported directly from Deputy to Paycor, reducing the need to manually re-enter worked hours.

For a complete overview of how Deputy and Paycor work together, see Getting started with Deputy Payroll enabled by Paycor (US).

Third-party payroll integration

If you already use another payroll provider, you can keep Deputy focused on scheduling, attendance, timesheets, and pay calculations, then send approved timesheet data to your existing payroll system. Deputy supports payroll integrations including Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, ADP, and other providers, with the exact workflow and data available depending on the integration you use.

For a complete overview of the available payroll connections, see Payroll integrations.

For more information on Leave management, see:

Keep payroll testing simple

Run a test export before your first live pay run. Focus on:

Regular clinic shifts: Confirm salaried vets, hourly nurses, reception, kennel, and grooming shifts appear as expected.
After-hours and emergency work: Test after-hours, emergency, on-call, overtime, missed breaks, and public holidays where applicable.
Staff moving between Areas: Confirm that staff working across vets, nurses, reception, surgery, kennels, grooming, or after-hours export correctly.

Qualifications, Training Tags, and reporting

Training Tags can help prevent staff from being scheduled into Areas where they are not trained, qualified, or suitable to work. They can support decision-making, but they do not replace formal compliance review.

Common veterinary Training Tags include Veterinarian, Nurse, Receptionist, Surgery Trained, Emergency, After-hours, Kennel, Grooming, First Aid, and Practice Manager.

Common reports include:

Schedule, timesheet and sales comparison: Compare scheduled and actual hours and wage costs, and review cost variance where relevant.
Attendance & absence: Review no-shows, late arrivals, missed breaks, and early departures by Location, Area, or team member.
Schedule adherence by team member: Compare scheduled hours with actual hours worked and identify the cost variance when team members work outside the original schedule. (Requires Analytics+)

If your clinic needs to collect onboarding documents, store employee records, manage policy acknowledgements, right-to-work checks, licences, or certification expiry dates, Deputy HR can help support those workflows. Deputy HR requires an add-on.

Run day-to-day veterinary workflows

Clocking in: Kiosk or tablet

Most veterinary clinics use kiosk or tablet clock-in with photo capture. The mobile app is still useful for viewing rosters, availability, leave requests, and updates.

For a complete overview, see Using Deputy across different devices.

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Manage schedule adjustments

Use Areas to show coverage across vets, nurses, reception, surgery, kennels, grooming, after-hours, and emergency work.

Open shifts, shift offers, and shift swaps can help fill gaps, but they should be reviewed carefully where clinical qualifications, surgery suitability, or emergency coverage matters.

For a complete overview, see open shifts, shift offers, and shift swaps.

After-hours, emergency work, and tasks

Decide how after-hours and emergency work should be represented before rollout. Common approaches include separate After-hours or Emergency Areas, on-call notes, or payroll adjustments where required.

Task management can help standardise opening checks, closing checks, surgery preparation, cleaning routines, kennel checks, stock checks, and handovers.

Communicate with your team

News Feed and Messaging can help managers share roster changes, emergency coverage, clinic announcements, policy reminders, and staff updates.

For a complete overview, see News Feed and Deputy Messaging.

Quick add-on and plan check

The following add-ons and plan options may be useful as your use of Deputy grows. To check what is included in each plan or add-on, see our pricing plans.

Do you need to...	You may need...	Common fit
Store onboarding records, clinical checks, policy acknowledgements, or employee records	Deputy HR	Clinics that need employee records and documents connected to workforce setup
Create custom reports, schedule emailed reports, and review labour trends across clinics or departments	Analytics+	Practice managers or owners who need deeper workforce and labour reporting
Use larger messaging groups, more message history, or team-based communication	Messaging Plus	Clinics that need communication for emergency coverage, roster updates, or clinic announcements
Process payroll from approved Deputy timesheets where available	Deputy Payroll	Clinics that want payroll connected more closely to Deputy scheduling, attendance, and timesheet approvals
Set up custom roles, additional Location hierarchy, and more detailed permission controls	Deputy Pro	Multi-clinic groups or hospitals with more detailed access and reporting requirements

Five-step onboarding checklist

These stages apply whether you are evaluating Deputy, testing it with one clinic, or rolling it out across your full business.

Set up your structure: Create your Locations and Areas, choose naming conventions, and review any required export codes.
Add your team and schedules: Add staff and managers, assign access levels, set up pay details, and create your first schedule.
Test your workflows: Test kiosk clock-in, photo capture, breaks, missed clock-ins, open shifts, shift swaps, and notifications with a pilot group.
Review timesheets and payroll: Approve pilot timesheets and test salaried vet rosters, hourly staff, after-hours, emergency shifts, overtime, public holidays, and payroll export.
Go live: Train practice managers and head nurses, publish the live schedule, and roll Deputy out to the rest of your team.

For a guided onboarding checklist, open the Help menu by selecting the ? icon in your Deputy account, then select Start here.

Avoid common veterinary clinic set-up mistakes

Common mistake	Why it causes problems
Not separating clinic coverage Areas	Makes rostering harder across vets, nurses, reception, surgery, kennels, and after-hours work.
Giving head nurses wage visibility unnecessarily	Supervisor access may be enough for daily coverage management.
Not testing after-hours or emergency work	Can create payroll review issues.
Not using Training Tags	Can create scheduling errors where clinical skills or role suitability matter.
Making every department a Location too early	Can fragment whole-clinic visibility and make rostering harder.
Ignoring payroll setup until go-live	Can delay payroll testing and create reporting or payroll issues.

Get more help

During your trial, use the Action Bar to access setup help without leaving Deputy.

From the Action Bar, you can:

Select Start here to open Deputy Essentials, where you'll find bite-sized videos and guided walkthroughs to help you set up your business at your own pace.
Select Ask an expert to connect with an SMB Consultant.
Select the ? icon to open the Help menu and access support options.

You can collapse the Action Bar or drag it to another position on the screen.

Help Centre

For help and support, see Get help and request support from Deputy.