This guide explains how to set up Deputy for a childcare business. 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 childcare workflows
Quick add-on and plan check
Five-step onboarding checklist
Avoid common childcare set-up mistakes
Get more help

Choose your organisational structure

In Deputy, Locations usually represent physical centres, campuses, OSHC sites, or services. Areas represent the rooms, roles, coverage groups, or work areas where team members perform their work.

Choose a starting model that reflects how your business manages rosters, room coverage, reporting, payroll export codes, and centre access. You can refine the structure as your use of Deputy grows.

Business type	Suggested starting structure	Childcare Area examples	Things to consider
Single childcare centre Early learning centres, daycare centres, preschools, and kindergartens	One Location representing the centre	Nursery, Toddlers, Preschool, Kindy, Float, Kitchen, Admin, and Responsible Person	This structure keeps whole-centre scheduling, kiosk clock-in, break coverage, and labour reporting together.
Multi-centre provider Providers with several centres or campuses	One Location for each centre or campus	Nursery, Toddlers, Preschool, Float, Kitchen, and Admin	Centre directors can manage local rosters and timesheet approvals. Consistent Area names can support comparison across centres.
OSHC provider Before school care, after school care, and vacation care	One Location for each OSHC program or site	Before School Care, After School Care, Vacation Care, Float, and Responsible Person	Split shifts, minimum engagements, and program-level reporting should be tested before rollout.
Large centre with separate managers Centres where manager responsibilities are separated by room group	One Location for each room group only when separate approval boundaries are needed	Lead Educator, Assistant Educator, Float, Kitchen, and Admin	This can improve permission separation, but may make whole-centre visibility harder.

When you plan your structure, consider:

Room coverage: Rooms are usually easier to manage as Areas, not separate Locations.
Shared educators: Team members who work across multiple centres need access to each relevant Location.
Reporting and export codes: Consistent Area names and export codes can support payroll, finance, 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 centre, room group, OSHC site, or service works the way your team expects.

Key settings to review include:

Review the physical address and map pin: Accurate Location details help with kiosk setup, mobile clock-in settings, and reporting.
Review Areas and Training Tags: Areas can represent rooms, roles, float coverage, kitchen, admin, responsible person coverage, or OSHC care types. Training Tags can help managers identify educators who are trained or suitable for specific work.
Review scheduling settings: Confirm default shifts, breaks, open shifts, shift offers, shift swaps, notifications, and shift locking.
Review timesheet settings: Confirm kiosk or tablet clock-in, photo capture, break settings, rounding, employee timesheet edits, timesheet auto-approval, and unscheduled shifts.

Most childcare businesses use kiosk or tablet clock-in with photo capture. Mobile GPS is usually unnecessary when educators work from a fixed centre. Avoid timesheet auto-approval until break coverage, room changes, and exceptions are reviewed consistently.

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, room visibility, and centre reporting.

Childcare role	Recommended Deputy access	Common responsibility
Educators and casual educators	Employee	View rosters, clock in and out, request leave, submit availability, and review updates
Room leaders	Supervisor	Review attendance, break coverage, and room exceptions without unnecessary wage visibility
Educational leaders	Supervisor or Location Manager	Support roster review depending on their responsibility
Centre directors	Location Manager	Manage rosters, approvals, labour visibility, and reporting
Payroll and bookkeepers	Advisor	Review approved timesheets, payroll exports, and employee records
Owners and operations	System Administrator	Manage account settings, structure, integrations, and access

Most childcare businesses use Supervisor access for room leaders who approve time but should not see wage costs. Use Location Manager access for centre directors who manage rosters, labour 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. You can add team members individually, add multiple team members, import them from another system, or invite them to join Deputy.

For a complete overview, see Adding team members.

Prepare payroll and scheduling workflows

Childcare payroll can include award rules, room leader allowances, higher duties, responsible person duties, split shifts for OSHC, casual loading, public holidays, breaks, overtime, and RDOs where applicable. 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 and casual educator shifts: Confirm that standard hours, casual loading, and pay rates appear as expected.
Allowances and duties: Test room leader allowances, higher duties, responsible person duties, OSHC split shifts, and public holidays where applicable.
Room and centre changes: Confirm that educators moving between rooms or centres export correctly.

Qualifications, Training Tags, and reporting

Training Tags help managers identify whether educators have the right qualification or suitability before publishing rosters. They can support decision-making, but they do not replace formal compliance review.

Common childcare Training Tags include Cert III, Diploma Qualified, Early Childhood Teacher, First Aid, CPR, Anaphylaxis, Asthma, Working With Children Check, Food Safety, Responsible Person, Educational Leader, and Room Leader.

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, and early departures by Location, Area, or team member to see where attendance is affecting room coverage.
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 business needs to collect onboarding documents, store employee records, manage policy acknowledgements, Working With Children checks, 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 childcare workflows

Clocking in: Kiosk or tablet

Choose the clock-in method that matches where your team works.

Kiosk or tablet clock-in: Useful for educators and centre-based teams who start and finish work at a fixed site.
Mobile app clock-in: Useful only where team members work away from a fixed centre and your business wants mobile clock-in enabled.

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

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Manage schedule adjustments

Childcare rosters can change when educators are away, rooms need extra coverage, breaks need to be covered, or responsible person coverage changes.

Open shifts, shift offers, and shift swaps can help fill gaps, but they should be reviewed carefully where qualifications, room suitability, and ratios matter.

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

Qualification visibility and break coverage

Use Areas and Training Tags together to help managers review room coverage, float coverage, break coverage, and responsible person coverage before shifts are published.

Breaks should be planned so room coverage remains visible. If float educators cover breaks, make sure the Float Area is clear and used consistently.

Communicate with your team

News Feed and Messaging can help managers share roster changes, room coverage updates, urgent cover needs, centre 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 qualification documents, Working With Children checks, onboarding records, policy acknowledgements, or employee records	Deputy HR	Businesses that need educator records and checks to connect to workforce setup
Create custom reports, schedule emailed reports, and review labour trends across rooms or centres	Analytics+	Managers or operators who need deeper workforce, attendance, and labour reporting
Use larger messaging groups, more message history, or team-based communication for centres, rooms, OSHC teams, or multi-centre teams	Messaging Plus	Businesses that need faster communication for coverage changes, urgent cover, staff updates, or centre announcements
Process payroll from approved Deputy timesheets where available	Deputy Payroll	Businesses 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-centre businesses or accounts with more detailed access and reporting requirements

Five-step onboarding checklist

These stages apply whether you are evaluating Deputy, testing it with one centre, 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 educators 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 room leader shifts, responsible person duties, OSHC split shifts, allowances, higher duties, and educator room changes.
Go live: Train centre directors and room leaders, 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 childcare set-up mistakes

Common mistake	Why it causes problems
Not using rooms as Areas	Makes room coverage harder to see.
Not using Training Tags	Can lead to unsuitable rostering or extra manual checks.
Giving room leaders wage visibility unnecessarily	Supervisor access may be enough for daily room management.
Using mobile GPS when kiosk or tablet clock-in is cleaner	Adds unnecessary complexity for fixed-centre teams.
Not planning break coverage	Can affect room coverage and make daily roster review harder.
Not testing OSHC split shifts	Can create payroll issues if split shifts or minimum engagements apply.
Treating Training Tags as a replacement for compliance review	Can create operational risk if formal compliance checks are not maintained.

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.