This article explains how agriculture and farming businesses can decide whether Deputy is the right fit, plan their set-up, trial key workflows, and prepare for rollout across farms, properties, seasonal teams, payroll, and operations.

Before you read

• Target audience: This article is for users with System Administrator access.
• Plan restrictions: To check whether your plan includes this feature, see our plan guide.

This article covers:

• Who this guide is for
• What Deputy can help agriculture businesses manage
• Choosing a starting model
• Structuring Locations, Areas, access, and integrations
• Reviewing Location settings before rollout
• Setting access and approval responsibilities
• Preparing payroll, allowances, and reporting workflows
• Running day-to-day agriculture workflows
• Quick add-on and plan check
• Trial and rollout checklist
• Common mistakes to avoid

Who this guide is for

This guide is for farms, stations, growers, cropping businesses, livestock businesses, mixed farming operations, packing sheds, harvest teams, rural employers, and seasonal workforces.

It is especially useful for businesses that manage remote teams, multiple properties, harvest peaks, seeding, livestock work, machinery operators, seasonal workers, allowances, overtime, TOIL or RDOs, or mobile clock-in.

What Deputy can help agriculture businesses manage

Agriculture and farming businesses often need to manage remote teams, seasonal peaks, changing work locations, long shifts, and payroll-ready attendance records. Workers need clear rosters, supervisors need attendance visibility, payroll teams need approved timesheets, and managers need labour visibility without duplicating farm management systems.

Deputy can help agriculture businesses manage seasonal rosters, mobile clock-in, GPS attendance, timesheet approvals, property or work-type reporting, overtime review, allowance visibility, Training Tags, payroll preparation, communication with remote teams, task workflows, and labour reporting.

Many agriculture businesses adopt Deputy because it can reduce manual admin, improve workforce visibility, and simplify day-to-day coordination across farms, properties, sheds, supervisors, seasonal teams, payroll, and operations.

• Workers can clock in and out using mobile or fixed-site workflows.
• Supervisors can review missed clock-ins, long shifts, travel, and exceptions before payroll cut-off.
• Payroll teams can work from cleaner approved timesheets.
• Managers can review labour activity by property, task, season, or team.
• Seasonal workers can be onboarded and archived more cleanly.
• Task workflows can help support operational consistency across teams.
• Communication workflows can help managers share weather changes, start-time updates, machinery issues, and urgent notices.

Deputy is usually used alongside farm management, machinery maintenance, agronomy, livestock records, harvest yield, production data, and paddock management systems. Keep those workflows in your specialist systems if they already sit outside Deputy.

Many agriculture businesses start with scheduling, attendance, and timesheet approvals first, then expand into reporting, communication, onboarding, analytics, or broader workforce workflows over time.

What good looks like

• Workers know which property, shed, task, or work type they are rostered to.
• Supervisors can review missed clock-ins, long shifts, travel, and exceptions before payroll cut-off.
• Payroll teams receive approved timesheets with the right work type, allowance, or Area detail.
• Seasonal workers can be onboarded and archived cleanly.
• Managers can review labour by property, task, season, or team.
• The set-up remains simple enough for supervisors to use during peak periods.

Choose your starting model

Start by choosing the model that best matches how your agriculture business works today. You can add more reporting detail later once your team is using Deputy consistently.

Use these models as a starting point only. Your final set-up should reflect your payroll rules, reporting needs, integrations, approval process, and how your team manages properties, seasonal teams, and daily work.

Structure Locations, Areas, and integrations

In Deputy, a Location does not always need to represent an office. Many agriculture businesses use Locations to represent farms, properties, stations, depots, packing sheds, regions, or seasonal sites.

Areas are usually used to represent the work being performed or the reporting detail needed. For agriculture businesses, this might include livestock, machinery, harvest, seeding, irrigation, workshop, packing, QA, or seasonal work.

Some integrations can create or update team members, payroll data, costing data, or reporting information in Deputy. Review your integration requirements before you finalise your structure so your Deputy set-up matches your payroll, accounting, costing, farm management, or operational workflows.

Option 1 — Property as a Location

This structure works well for multi-property agriculture businesses that need property-level reporting, manager visibility, or approvals.

Farms, stations, and mixed operations commonly use this model when different properties need separate labour visibility.

Option 2 — Farm as a Location, tasks as Areas

This structure works well for single-property farms or simpler operations.

It is a strong starting model when you want a simple set-up with enough detail to report by work type or task.

Option 3 — Seasonal site as a Location

This structure works well for harvest sheds, packing operations, or temporary workforce ramp-ups.

Seasonal teams can be managed separately while keeping normal farm operations easier to review.

Option 4 — Depot as a Location, broad tasks as Areas

This structure works well where teams start from one depot but work across large properties or mobile areas.

It keeps the structure simple while still allowing task-based labour reporting.

Review Location settings before rollout

Location settings control many of the defaults that affect scheduling, clocking in, timesheets, approvals, and reporting. Review these settings before go-live so each farm, property, shed, depot, or seasonal site works the way your team expects.

This section is not a full set-up guide. Use it as a quick reminder of the settings to review, then refer to the detailed Location, Area, scheduling, and timesheet settings articles for step-by-step guidance.

General Location settings to review: farm or property name, address and map pin, operating days and hours, Location code, notes, and attachments.

For agriculture businesses:

• Clear Location names can help managers distinguish between farms, properties, stations, depots, sheds, regions, or seasonal sites.
• For remote properties, map pins and notes should be checked carefully.
• Some locations may not map cleanly, so managers should test clock-in before rollout.

Area settings to review: work type names, Area export codes, preferred staff, and Training Tags.

For agriculture businesses:

• Areas are where you can set up livestock, machinery, harvest, seeding, irrigation, workshop, packing, QA, or transport work.
• Area export codes can support payroll, accounting, costing, or labour reporting workflows.
• Training Tags can help manage machinery, chemical handling, licences, livestock handling, first aid, and site induction requirements.

Scheduling settings to review: default shift settings, default break settings, open shifts, shift offers, notifications, and shift locking.

For agriculture businesses:

• Seasonal peaks may need different scheduling patterns from normal operations.
• Open shifts can help fill seasonal gaps, but training, licence, and suitability requirements should still be controlled.
• Shift locking can help reduce retrospective schedule changes after work has already happened.

Timesheet settings to review: mobile clock-in, GPS capture, geofencing, kiosk clock-in for sheds or depots, employee timesheet edits, break settings, rounding, timesheet auto-approval, notes, and custom timesheet questions where relevant.

For agriculture businesses:

• This is where you can control important attendance and payroll behaviours.
• Mobile clock-in with GPS capture is usually more practical for field work.
• Kiosk or tablet clock-in may work well for packing sheds, workshops, or depots if staff start from a fixed point.
• Hard geofencing may not suit large properties, remote paddocks, or teams moving throughout the day.

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, seasonal teams, and property reporting.

Most agriculture businesses allow farm workers and seasonal workers to clock in, clock out, and submit leave or availability where relevant. Supervisors usually review daily attendance, notes, and exceptions. Farm and property managers usually manage rosters, approvals, and labour visibility. Payroll and admin teams usually review payroll outputs and final exceptions.

Supervisor or Location Manager?

Most agriculture businesses use Supervisor access for leading hands or supervisors who approve time but should not see wage costs.

Use Location Manager access for farm or property managers who need labour cost visibility, roster cost visibility, or broader reporting.

Prepare payroll, allowances, and reporting workflows

Payroll systems and payroll workflows

Agriculture businesses may need to manage seasonal casuals, overtime, weekend work, public holidays, machinery allowances, meal allowances, accommodation, travel, truck driving, TOIL or RDOs, salaried workers, and BOOT considerations where relevant.

Many agriculture businesses want payroll workflows that sit close to scheduling, attendance, and approved timesheets. Deputy Payroll (AU) and Deputy Payroll (US) can help support that approach where available.

Businesses with established payroll, accounting, costing, or farm management systems may still choose to connect Deputy to a third-party payroll integration. This usually works best when another system already owns production, farm management, yield, livestock, or machinery data.

Before rollout, decide which system should own:

• Employee records
• Payroll calculations
• Allowance handling
• Seasonal worker records
• Export codes and property, task, or work type structures
• Property, task, season, or labour reporting

Compare payroll approaches

Start by reviewing whether Deputy Payroll is available and suitable for your region and business needs. If your business already has a payroll, accounting, costing, or farm management system that needs to stay in place, review how Deputy should connect to that system.

Agriculture businesses commonly test payroll exports and approval workflows before rollout so supervisors, payroll teams, and farm managers can confirm that attendance, allowance, seasonal, and reporting workflows behave as expected.

Payroll testing

Test payroll before your first live pay run using real agriculture examples so payroll, operations, and farm managers can confirm the outputs match your business workflows.

• Harvest shift
• Seeding shift
• Machinery allowance
• Long shift
• Weekend shift
• Public holiday
• Accommodation or meal allowance
• Seasonal worker
• Missed clock-in correction
• TOIL or RDO workflow
• Worker moving between Areas in one day

Property, task, and workforce reporting

If labour reporting by property, task, season, team, or work type matters, use Areas, Area export codes, consistent naming conventions, notes, or integrations. This keeps reporting cleaner and helps avoid duplicating your farm management systems.

Agriculture businesses commonly review reporting by:

• Property
• Task
• Season
• Team
• Work type
• Seasonal labour
• Rostered versus actual hours
• Overtime
• Missed clock-ins

Qualifications, licences, and Training Tags

Training Tags help prevent workers from being scheduled into Areas where they are not licensed, trained, or approved to work. This is useful for machinery, chemical handling, licences, livestock handling, first aid, site inductions, and safety-sensitive work.

Common agriculture Training Tags include Forklift Licence, HR Licence, MR Licence, HC Licence, Chemical Handling, Machinery Operator, Tractor Operator, Header Operator, First Aid, Livestock Handling, Working Holiday Visa Checked, and Site Induction.

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

Run day-to-day agriculture workflows

Clocking in and attendance

Use mobile clock-in with GPS capture for field work. This provides attendance visibility while still supporting work across large properties, remote areas, and changing work locations.

Use kiosk or tablet clock-in for packing sheds, workshops, or depots if staff start from a fixed point.

For most field teams, GPS capture without hard geofencing is the better starting point.

Scheduling and shift changes

Agriculture schedules may change due to:

• Weather
• Machinery availability
• Harvest timing
• Livestock needs
• Delivery windows
• Staff availability

Keep workflows simple enough for supervisors to update quickly during busy periods.

Seasonal onboarding

Plan seasonal workers before peak periods so your team is ready before harvest, seeding, packing, or other high-volume periods begin.

Decide how workers will be added, invited, trained, rostered, archived, and reactivated in future seasons.

Task management

Task management can help agriculture businesses standardise daily farm, shed, machinery, safety, and supervisor routines so important work is not missed.

Agriculture businesses commonly use Task management for daily checks, machinery checks, safety routines, shed opening checks, end-of-day handovers, and supervisor review tasks before payroll approval.

Communication

News Feed and Messaging can help managers share weather changes, start-time updates, machinery issues, location changes, shift changes, urgent notices, and operational updates.

Messaging Plus can support agriculture businesses that need larger groups, more message history, team-based conversations, or role-based communication. This can be useful when managers need groups for properties, sheds, seasonal teams, supervisors, or mobile field teams.

Labour visibility and analytics

Agriculture businesses commonly review overtime, seasonal labour, attendance, labour by property, labour by work type, rostered versus actual hours, and missed clock-ins.

Analytics can help businesses review workforce activity inside Deputy. Analytics Plus can support deeper reporting needs, including custom reports, scheduled emailed reports, and labour reports for managers or owners who need visibility without logging in every day.

Quick add-on and plan check

Some agriculture businesses need more than scheduling, attendance, and payroll preparation. Use this section as a quick guide to what may be useful as your rollout becomes more complex.

To check what is included in each plan or add-on, see our pricing plans.

Trial and rollout checklist

You do not have to build your full agriculture business in Deputy during a trial or first rollout. A focused rollout can help you test one real farm, property, shed, seasonal workflow, payroll scenario, and approval process before expanding the set-up.

The timeline is up to your business. Some businesses move quickly, and others need more time to validate payroll, train supervisors, onboard seasonal workers, and review integrations. Use these stages as a guide, not a fixed timeline.

Avoid common agriculture set-up mistakes

Final recommendation

If you are unsure where to start, begin with the structure your supervisors already use to plan labour across farms, properties, sheds, tasks, or seasons.

For most agriculture businesses, use Locations for farms, properties, sheds, or depots, and use Areas for livestock, machinery, harvest, seeding, irrigation, workshop, packing, or transport.

Use mobile GPS for field work, keep hard geofencing turned off for large or mobile work areas, and consider kiosk or tablet clock-in for sheds, workshops, or depots where staff start from a fixed point.

Use Employee access for farm and seasonal workers, Supervisor access for leading hands or supervisors, and Location Manager access for farm or property managers who need labour visibility.

Choose one starting model, build one pilot Location, test clock-in, review Location settings, review approval workflows, test payroll, and decide whether add-ons are needed before expanding your set-up.

Review attendance workflows, payroll testing, reporting requirements, integrations, add-ons, Training Tags, seasonal onboarding, and supervisor adoption before rolling Deputy out across the business.

The goal is to keep seasonal labour visible without overcomplicating the account.

Need help? Use the help menu in your Deputy account to access support, online training, and guidance.