This guide explains how to set up Deputy for a manufacturing 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
- Reporting and workforce visibility
Run day-to-day manufacturing workflows
Quick add-on and plan check
Five-step onboarding checklist
Avoid common manufacturing set-up mistakes
Get more help

Choose your organisational structure

In Deputy, Locations can represent factories, plants, warehouses, processing sites, packing facilities, or departments that need separate settings and approvals. Areas usually represent production lines, departments, shifts, work types, QA, maintenance, warehouse, or dispatch.

Choose a starting model that reflects how your business manages rosters, production lines, departments, labour reporting, payroll export codes, and supervisor responsibilities.

Business type	Suggested starting structure	Manufacturing Area examples	Things to consider
Single plant or factory Manufacturers, factories, and processing facilities	Plant as the Location, with Areas for lines, departments, or work types	Line 1, Line 2, QA, Maintenance, Warehouse, Packing, and Dispatch	This keeps kiosk clock-in, supervisor approvals, and line-level reporting together.
Large site with separate departments Plants where departments have separate managers or approvals	Department as the Location only when separate approval boundaries are needed	Production, Warehouse, QA, Maintenance, Packing, and Dispatch	This can improve permission separation, but may make whole-site visibility harder.
Shift-based operation Factories with rotating rosters, fixed shifts, or production cycles	Plant as the Location, with Areas for lines or work types	Day Shift, Afternoon Shift, Night Shift, Production, QA, and Maintenance	Use shift type Areas only when shift reporting matters more than line reporting.
Multi-site manufacturer Businesses with several factories, warehouses, or packing facilities	One Location for each plant or site	Production, Warehouse, QA, Maintenance, Packing, and Dispatch	Consistent Area names support comparison across sites.

When you plan your structure, consider:

Line and department reporting: Use Areas for coverage, labour reporting, departments, lines, work types, and costing detail.
Supervisor boundaries: Use separate Locations only when different settings, approvals, permissions, or reporting boundaries are required.
Export codes: Check whether payroll, costing, accounting, ERP, or labour reporting systems need Location or Area codes.

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 plant, factory, warehouse, department, or packing facility works the way your team expects.

Key settings to review include:

Review the physical address and map pin: Accurate Location details are important for kiosk clock-in, reporting, and mobile clock-in if used.
Review Areas and Training Tags: Areas can represent production lines, departments, QA, maintenance, warehouse, packing, dispatch, or shift types. Training Tags can help manage machinery, forklift, QA, maintenance, chemical handling, licences, or specialist skills.
Review scheduling settings: Confirm default shifts, break settings, schedule start day, shift rotations, open shifts, shift swaps, shift offers, notifications, and shift locking.
Review timesheet settings: Confirm kiosk clock-in, photo capture, employee timesheet edits, break settings, rounding, timesheet auto-approval, unscheduled shifts, and missed clock-in workflows.

Most manufacturing businesses should use kiosk or tablet clock-in with photo capture. Review missed clock-in workflows before rollout so supervisors know how to manage exceptions.

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, line visibility, and site reporting.

Manufacturing role	Recommended Deputy access	Common responsibility
Production workers	Employee	View rosters, clock in and out, request leave, and review updates
Line leads and supervisors	Supervisor	Review attendance, breaks, missed clock-ins, and daily exceptions
Production managers	Location Manager	Manage rosters, approvals, labour visibility, and site activity
Payroll and administrators	Advisor or System Administrator	Review approved timesheets, payroll exports, and employee records
Owners and operations leaders	System Administrator	Manage account settings, structure, integrations, and access

Most manufacturing businesses use Supervisor access for line leads who approve time but should not see wage costs. Use Location Manager access for production managers who need labour cost visibility, roster cost visibility, or broader reporting.

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

Manufacturing payroll can include ordinary hours, overtime, shift penalties, allowances, breaks, public holidays, long shifts, 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 and rotating shifts: Confirm standard hours, shift penalties, and pay rates appear as expected.
Breaks and overtime: Test missed breaks, overtime, early starts, late finishes, and public holidays where applicable.
Area and costing detail: Confirm that workers moving between Areas in one day export correctly.

Reporting and workforce visibility

If labour reporting by plant, department, line, shift, or work type matters, use Areas, Area export codes, and consistent naming conventions. This keeps reporting cleaner, simplifies payroll exports, and improves workforce visibility.

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 clock-ins, break exceptions, 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+)

Qualifications, licences, and Training Tags

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

Common manufacturing Training Tags include Forklift Licence, Machine Operator, QA, Maintenance, Chemical Handling, First Aid, Line Lead, and Supervisor.

If your business 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 manufacturing workflows

Clocking in: Kiosk or tablet

Most manufacturing businesses should use kiosk or tablet clock-in with photo capture. This is usually cleaner than mobile clock-in because workers often start from a fixed site.

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

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Manage shift patterns and changes

Manufacturing schedules often follow rotating rosters, production cycles, recurring shifts, or fixed line coverage. Use roster templates where possible so supervisors can manage repeated shift patterns without rebuilding the roster each week.

Open shifts, shift offers, and shift swaps can help fill gaps, but they should be reviewed carefully where licences, machinery skills, QA, maintenance, or supervisor coverage matters.

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

Break management and tasks

Breaks should be reviewed carefully where production lines need continuous coverage. Confirm whether breaks are scheduled, clocked, rounded, or reviewed manually before payroll approval.

Task management can help standardise pre-start checks, cleaning checks, quality checks, machinery checks, safety checks, handovers, and supervisor review tasks before payroll approval.

Communicate with your team

News Feed and Messaging can help managers share shift changes, production updates, safety notices, policy reminders, maintenance updates, and team announcements.

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, licences, policy acknowledgements, or employee records	Deputy HR	Businesses that need employee records and documents connected to rostering and workforce operations
Create custom reports, schedule emailed reports, and review overtime, shift trends, or department-level labour	Analytics+	Managers or operators who need deeper workforce and labour reporting
Use larger messaging groups, more message history, or team-based communication	Messaging Plus	Businesses that need communication for shift changes, safety notices, and production updates
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	Businesses with complex plants, departments, supervisor layers, or reporting requirements

Five-step onboarding checklist

These stages apply whether you are evaluating Deputy, testing it with one plant or department, 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 workers 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 rotating shifts, breaks, overtime, early starts, public holidays, employees moving between Areas, and payroll export.
Go live: Train supervisors and managers, 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 manufacturing set-up mistakes

Common mistake	Why it causes problems
Using mobile clock-in when kiosk is cleaner	Mobile clock-in may add unnecessary complexity when workers start from a fixed site.
Creating too many Areas	Makes roster maintenance harder and can create unnecessary reporting noise.
Not testing break workflows	Can cause payroll issues where breaks are scheduled, clocked, rounded, or manually reviewed.
Waiting until payroll day to review exceptions	Overtime can build quickly when supervisors do not review rostered versus actual hours.
Not using Training Tags	Can create unsuitable rostering decisions or extra manual checks where licences or skills matter.
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.