This guide explains how to set up Deputy for a service-based 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 Smart Scheduling workflows
- Smart Scheduling, analytics, and labour insights
Run day-to-day service workflows
Quick add-on and plan check
Five-step onboarding checklist
Avoid common service-based business set-up mistakes
Get more help

Choose your organisational structure

In Deputy, Locations usually represent physical offices, operating sites, regions, or major client sites. Areas represent the departments, teams, clients, projects, work types, or coverage groups where team members perform their work.

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

Business type	Suggested starting structure	Service Area examples	Things to consider
Office-based service business Consulting businesses, agencies, professional services firms, and office teams	One Location representing the office	Admin, Consulting, Support, Sales, and Operations	This structure keeps attendance, scheduling, and payroll reporting simple when detailed client or project reporting is handled elsewhere.
Mobile service business Repair, maintenance, field service, and mobile support teams	A region or service hub as the Location	Clients, work types, Admin, and Travel	Mobile clock-in can support teams working across client sites. Areas can provide client or work-type reporting without creating a Location for every client.
Major client contracts Businesses with client-specific access, approvals, or reporting	One Location for each major client contract	Onsite Service, Maintenance, Support, and Admin	Use this structure selectively when client-specific settings, permissions, approvals, or reporting require stronger separation.
Project or job-based business Businesses already using project, job, CRM, or service management software	An office, depot, or region as the Location	Billable Work, Non-Billable Work, Admin, and Travel	Keep detailed job or project information in the specialist system where possible to avoid duplicate administration.

When you plan your structure, consider:

Shared team members: Team members who work across multiple offices, regions, or client Locations need access to each relevant Location.
Reporting and export codes: Consistent Area names and export codes can support payroll, accounting, client, project, and labour reporting workflows.
Other business systems: Deputy is usually used alongside CRM, quoting, project management, job management, ticketing, invoicing, billing, and detailed utilisation systems. Keep detailed jobs, projects, appointments, billing, and other specialist workflows in those systems when they already sit outside Deputy.

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 the settings that apply to your workflow before your team starts using Deputy.

Review the physical address and map pin: Accurate Location details support mobile clock-in settings and can help confirm that team members are within the configured clock-in area when working from a fixed office or client site.
- Note: An area's address will override the location's address.
Set up Training Tags: Training Tags can identify team members who are trained or approved to work with specific clients, sites, projects, or types of work. Common examples include Client Induction, Site Induction, First Aid, Security Clearance, Technical Certification, Project Certified, Supervisor, Onsite Approved, and Travel Approved.
Review Shift Locking: Shift Locking can limit changes to scheduled shifts after a configured time.
Review Timesheet Auto-Approval: Manual approval during an initial rollout allows managers to review overtime, travel time, client or project details, and other exceptions.

For a complete overview of every Location setting, including General, Areas, Scheduling, and Timesheet settings, see Creating your Locations.

Set access and approval responsibilities

Access levels control who can manage schedules, approve timesheets, view wage information, and change account settings.

Deputy access level	Common service business users	Common responsibilities
System Administrator	Owners and directors	Manage account structure, integrations, access, and account-wide settings.
Location Manager	Operations, regional, client, or project managers	Manage schedules, labour budgets, wage visibility, approvals, and reporting.
Supervisor	Team leads and supervisors	Manage daily attendance and timesheet exceptions without access to wage or schedule cost information.
Employees	Office, mobile, field, and client-site team members	View schedules, clock in and out, request leave, and review team updates.

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 Smart Scheduling workflows

Service-based payroll can include ordinary hours, overtime, travel time, client or site allowances, weekend or public holiday rates, 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 service-based businesses, consider how client, project, Area, export code, travel, allowance, and other timesheet information needs to move between Deputy and your existing systems.

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 hours: Confirm that standard hours and pay rates appear as expected.
Overtime: Confirm that overtime hours and rates appear as expected.
Travel and allowances: If your business uses travel time, site allowances, or similar conditions, confirm that they appear as expected.

Smart Scheduling, analytics, and labour insights

You can compare schedule costs with labour budgets, sales data, or other workforce information while building schedules. Business Insights cost panel can help you review labour cost information alongside other analytics and reporting views.

Common reports include:

Schedule, timesheet and sales comparison: Compare scheduled and actual hours and wage costs, review cost variance, and track labour percentage against sales.
Attendance & absence: Review no-shows, late arrivals, and early departures by Location, Area, or team member to see where attendance is affecting scheduled 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+)

Client, project, and workforce reporting

If labour reporting by team, client, project, task, region, or work type matters, use Areas, Locations, Area export codes, consistent naming conventions, notes, or integrations. This can support the reporting you need without duplicating another job or project management system.
Note: You can use Area codes and Locations as a way to communicate with other external systems about jobs, as all timesheets are stamped with an area code, and indirectly a location.

Service-based businesses may review workforce activity by:

Team
Client
Project
Task
Employee
Region
Billable and non-billable work
Travel
Admin time

If billable and non-billable reporting is important, decide during set-up how that information will be represented in Deputy and how it needs to flow to any project, billing, accounting, or reporting system.

Click for a complete overview of Smart Scheduling, workforce reporting via Deputy Analytics, and business insights.

Run day-to-day service workflows

Clocking in: Kiosk, mobile app, or other configured method

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

Kiosk: A shared tablet Kiosk can support office or fixed-site teams and can use PIN access and photo capture where enabled.
Mobile app: Mobile clock-in can support field teams, client-site workers, drivers, and other team members who work away from a fixed Location.

GPS capture can be useful for client-site visibility. However, strict location controls may not suit team members who regularly move between client sites, offices, projects, or other work locations. Review your clock-in configuration against how your mobile teams actually work.

For a complete overview of the available clock-in methods, see Using Deputy across different devices.

Manage schedule adjustments

Some service-based businesses plan work by schedule, while others primarily use jobs, appointments, or projects managed in another system. Keep your Deputy scheduling workflow as simple as your operation allows.

For businesses that work primarily by appointment, job, or project, Deputy does not need to duplicate the detailed workflow managed by your specialist system. Deputy can remain focused on workforce scheduling, attendance, approvals, and payroll-ready reporting.

Open shifts let eligible team members apply for available shifts. Shift swaps let team members request changes to assigned shifts.

Manager review can help confirm that a team member has the required training, client or site access, availability, and permissions before a change is approved.

Click to learn more about open shifts, shift offers, and shift swaps.

Communicate with your team

News Feed and Messaging can be used to share client updates, policy reminders, schedule changes, project instructions, operational notices, and team announcements.

Messaging+ includes additional messaging features, such as larger groups, more message history, read receipts, and role-based conversations.

Click to learn more about the 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.

If you need to...	Review this feature	Common use case
Send onboarding forms, store employee documents, and track licence, certification, induction, or training expiry dates	Deputy HR	Businesses that hire frequently or manage employee records, training, and compliance documents in Deputy
Create custom reports, schedule emailed reports, and review workforce trends across teams, Locations, clients, or projects	Analytics+	Managers or operators who need deeper workforce, client, project, billable, or labour reporting
Set up custom roles, additional Location hierarchy, and more detailed permission controls	Deputy Pro	Businesses with more detailed client, project, regional, access, or reporting requirements

Five-step onboarding checklist

These stages apply whether you are evaluating Deputy, testing it with a smaller group, 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 team members, assign access levels, set up pay details, and create your first schedule.
Test your workflows: Test clock-in, breaks, leave requests, schedule changes, and notifications with a pilot group.
Review timesheets and payroll: Approve pilot timesheets and test regular and overtime payroll output. Include travel, allowances, client or project information, or billable and non-billable work if these apply to your business.
Go live: Train managers, publish the live schedule where scheduling is used, and roll Deputy out to the rest of your team.

For a guided onboarding, open from the Help menu in your Deputy account.

Avoid common service-based business set-up mistakes

Common mistake	Why it causes problems
Building too much structure too early	Adds administration before workflows are proven and can make adoption harder. Start with the structure needed for scheduling, attendance, permissions, payroll, and reporting.
Creating every client as a Location	Can become difficult to maintain unless client-specific approvals, settings, permissions, or reporting require separate Locations.
Mixing clients, teams, tasks, and projects across Areas without a plan	Can make reporting difficult to interpret and lead to unnecessary structure changes later.
Giving every team lead wage visibility	Exposes wage information when Supervisor access may be enough for daily team management. Review Deputy access levels to choose the appropriate level of access.
Duplicating job or project management unnecessarily	Can create double handling and inconsistent information when another system already manages detailed jobs, projects, clients, or appointments.
Using clock-in settings that do not match how teams work	Can create attendance problems for teams moving between offices, client sites, projects, or other work locations. Review shift tracking permissions to configure how team members can record time.
Skipping a payroll test export	Can leave pay rate, overtime, travel, allowance, rounding, or export issues undiscovered before the first live pay run. Learn how to export timesheets from Deputy and test your payroll workflow before going live.

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.