Setting up Deputy for a hospitality business
This guide explains how to set up Deputy for a hospitality 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 Retail & Hospitality and 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
- Run day-to-day hospitality workflows
- Quick add-on and plan check
- Five-step onboarding checklist
- Avoid common hospitality set-up mistakes
- Get more help
Choose your organisational structure
In Deputy, Locations usually represent physical venues or operating sites. Areas represent the departments, roles, coverage groups, or work areas where team members perform their work.
Choose a starting model that reflects how your business manages schedules, reporting, payroll export codes, and venue access. You can refine the structure as your use of Deputy grows.
| Business type | Suggested starting structure | Hospitality Area examples | Things to consider |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Single venue Cafés, neighbourhood bars, pubs, and restaurants |
One Location representing the venue | Floor, Bar, Kitchen, Host, Duty Manager, and Kitchen Hand | This structure keeps venue-level scheduling, kiosk clock-in, and labour reporting together. |
|
Multi-venue group Regional groups, restaurant brands, and multiple venue concepts |
One Location for each physical venue | FOH, BOH, Bar, Kitchen, and Manager | Venue managers can manage local schedules and timesheet approvals. Consistent Area names can support comparison across venues. |
|
Hotel or function venue Hotels, accommodation businesses, and event venues |
One Location with Areas for each department | Restaurant, Bar, Housekeeping, Events, and Front Desk | Area export codes can support department-level payroll or reporting requirements. |
|
Catering or mobile events Pop-ups, offsite event teams, catering crews, and food trucks |
A central depot or region as the Location | Set-up, FOH, Bar, Kitchen, Pack-down, and Driver | Mobile clock-in can support teams working away from a fixed venue. Shift notes or Areas can be used to distinguish different types of work. |
When you plan your structure, consider:
- Shared team members: Team members who work across multiple venues need access to each relevant Location.
- Reporting and export codes: Consistent Area names and export codes can support payroll, POS, 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 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 help confirm that team members are within the configured clock-in area.
- Set up Training Tags: Training Tags can identify team members who are trained or approved to work in specific Areas, such as Bar or Duty Manager.
- 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 early clock-ins, late finishes, and missed breaks.
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 hospitality users | Common responsibilities |
|---|---|---|
| System Administrator | Owners and operators | Manage account structure, integrations, access, and account-wide settings. |
| Location Manager | Venue and general managers | Manage local schedules, labour budgets, wage visibility, approvals, and venue reporting. |
| Supervisor | Duty managers and shift leads | Manage daily coverage and timesheet exceptions without access to wage or schedule cost information. |
| Employees | Floor, Bar, and Kitchen team members | View schedules, clock in and out, request leave, apply for open shifts, and request shift swaps. |
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
Hospitality payroll can include casual loading, late-night penalties, split shifts, overtime, 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 a complete overview of the available payroll connections, see Payroll integrations.
For more information on Leave management, see:
- Leave management overview (AU Only)
- Introduction to Leave management with Deputy Payroll (AU Only)
- Introduction to Leave Management (Global)
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.
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+)
Click for a complete overview of Smart Scheduling, workforce reporting via Deputy Analytics, and business insights.
Run day-to-day hospitality workflows
Clocking in: Kiosk or mobile app
Choose the clock-in method that matches where your team works.
- Kiosk: A shared tablet Kiosk can support venue-based teams and can use PIN access and photo capture where enabled.
- Mobile app: Mobile clock-in can support catering teams, event crews, drivers, and other team members who work away from a fixed venue.
For a complete overview of the available clock-in methods, see Using Deputy across different devices.
Manage schedule adjustments
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, availability, and access 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 venue updates, policy reminders, schedule changes, open shifts, 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 or certification expiry dates | Deputy HR | Businesses that hire frequently or manage employee records and compliance documents in Deputy |
| Create custom reports, schedule emailed reports, and review trends across venues | Analytics+ | Managers or operators who need deeper workforce and labour reporting |
| Set up custom roles, additional Location hierarchy, and more detailed permission controls | Deputy Pro | Multi-venue 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 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, open shifts, shift swaps, and notifications with a pilot group.
- Review timesheets and payroll: Approve pilot timesheets and test regular and overtime payroll output.
- Go live: Train 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 and click Start here in your Deputy account.
Avoid common hospitality set-up mistakes
| Common mistake | Why it causes problems |
|---|---|
| Giving every shift lead wage visibility | Exposes wage information when Supervisor access may be enough for daily floor management. |
| Allowing shift swaps without manager review | Can create coverage, training, access, or overtime issues. |
| Not using Training Tags | Can result in team members being scheduled into Areas where they are not trained or approved to work. |
| Leaving web browser clock in and out turned on | Can create attendance workflows that do not match how your venue wants team members to clock in and out. |
| Not using Schedule notifications for late starts and other changes | Can make it harder for managers and team members to act on schedule changes quickly. |
| Skipping a payroll test export | Can leave pay rate, overtime, rounding, or export issues undiscovered before the first live pay run. |
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.