Managing Departments

⚡ What are Departments?

Departments are a way to organize related Employee Positions into clear, reusable groupings.

When setting up your account, each employee is assigned a Position. Departments sit one level above those Positions and act as a structural layer, allowing you to group roles once instead of managing them individually elsewhere.

While Departments can feel optional at first, they become increasingly important as your team grows. Setting them up early creates a framework that new Positions can easily fit into later, rather than requiring you to revisit and update multiple roles after the fact.

Think of Departments like buckets for your Positions. Instead of managing each role individually, Departments let you group related Positions into a single bucket so they can be scheduled, filtered, and reviewed together. As more Positions are added, this grouping makes it much easier to keep your account organized and manageable over time.

💡 | Tip: To keep information consistent across the platform, we recommend aligning Department names with your Cost Centers. This makes it easier to compare the same groupings in reports, such as scheduled labour by Department and actual payroll costs by Cost Center, without needing to reconcile different labels.

🔎 Why Use Departments?

Here are some common reasons teams set up Departments:

• Clearer payroll reporting: Review payroll costs in clear, structured groupings instead of a single total, making it easier to understand how wages, deductions, and other pay types are distributed.
• More accurate cost analysis: Understand the true cost of payroll—including wages, stat pay, bonuses, and adjustments—rather than relying on labour hours alone.
• Easier reconciliation: Ensure earnings are consistently categorized in Journal Entry reports, reducing manual adjustments and simplifying accounting workflows.
• Scales with your business: As roles, teams, and pay structures grow, Cost Centers keep payroll data organized without adding complexity.

🔐 Access required

Departments are available on all subscription plans.

Who can manage Department Details?

• Super Administrators:  Full access to create, edit, and delete Departments and Sub-Departments.
• Team Administrators: Can create, edit, and delete Departments only if permission to Set up Departments is granted. If you are unable to access, please confirm your permissions with a Super Administrator.

📋 Topics covered in this article:

• Creating a new Department

• Creating a Sub-Department
• Assigning a Department to a Position
• Managing Existing Departments

📚 Related articles:

• Managing Cost Centers
• Managing Employee Groups
• Managing Employee Positions
• How To Filter The Scheduler

Creating a new Department

Creating Departments is one of the first recommended setup steps in a new account because it defines how roles are grouped across scheduling, filtering, and reporting.

Before creating Departments, it’s helpful to think about how your team is organized and how you want to review this information. Some businesses start with broader groupings, such as grouping roles by work type (e.g. Customer-Facing vs. Office roles). While others choose a more detailed structure based on function or responsibility, like Operations, Administration, or Management.

💡 | Tip: There’s no single right way to structure Departments. Start with groupings that make it easy to understand coverage and labour by team. As your business grows, you can always add more Departments to support deeper filtering and reporting.

1. In the top-right corner, click the Company Name.
2. Select Company Setup from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand navigation, click Departments to load the main Departments page.
   1. If Departments already exist, they’ll be listed on this page.
   2. If no Departments have been created yet, the page will appear empty.

4. To add a new Department, click the plus (+) icon under Actions.

5. Under Department Name, enter a clear, descriptive name.
   💡 | Tip: Use names that clearly reflect the roles included, such as Front of House or HR, so other admins can easily recognize them.
6. (Optional) Under Department Number, enter an internal reference code or leave blank if you do not utilize. 
7. Once done, click Save, and the page will refresh and list the new Department!

Creating a Sub-Department 

Sub-Departments allow you to further organize roles within a single Department. They work like sub-folders and are most commonly used to add additional filtering options in the Scheduler.

Before creating, ensure that at least one Department already exists in your account. Sub-departments must be linked to a parent Department and can’t be created independently.

📌 | Note: Sub-Departments do not appear in reports. Many businesses choose not to use them unless extra Scheduler filtering is required.

1. In the top-right corner, click the Company Name.
2. Select Company Setup from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand navigation, click Departments to load the main Departments page.

4. Navigate to the section titled Add a Sub Department. 

5. Under Department, click the drop-down menu and select the relevant Department that the Sub-Department is part of. 

6. Under Department Name, enter a clear, descriptive name.
7. (Optional) Under Department Number, enter an internal reference code or leave blank if you do not utilize. 
8. Once done, click Save, and the page will refresh and list the new Sub-Department under the Department!

Assigning a Department or Sub-Department to a Position

Departments must be assigned at the Position level to be reflected across scheduling and reporting. Creating a Department is the first step, but assigning it to a Position is what allows the platform to use that structure when filtering schedules and organizing report data.

Once a Department is linked to a Position, any employee in that role is automatically grouped correctly when viewing schedules, applying filters, or reviewing labour-related reports—helping everything stay accurate without extra setup later.

1. Click the Employees tab.
2. Select Employee Positions from the left-hand navigation.
3. Click the pencil icon next to the Position you want to edit.
   1. If the Position you need doesn’t exist yet, click Add a New Position instead. You can review our Creating Employee Positions guide for step-by-step instructions.
4. Under Department, select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu.
5. (Optional) Under Sub-Department, select a Sub-Department if applicable.
6. Once done, click Update Position.

Managing Existing Departments

Once you've created your Departments, you may need to update or remove them over time. This section outlines the options available for managing existing Departments over time, especially as your team structure evolves.

This section will guide you through the following sections:

• Adjusting Department Details
• Deleting a Department

Editing a Department

You may need to edit a Department to keep names aligned with changes in team structure or how work is organized.

1. In the top-right corner, click the Company Name.
2. Select Company Setup from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand navigation, click Departments to load the main Departments page.
4. Locate the Department you want to update.
5. Click into the Department Name field to adjust the title. 
6. Click into the Department Number field to adjust the code.
7. Once done, click Save and the page will refresh and list the new Department details!

Deleting a Department

You may choose to delete a Department if it’s no longer needed and should be removed from schedules and reporting going forward. Review with your team before deleting to avoid disrupting existing workflows.

1. In the top-right corner, click the Company Name.
2. Select Company Setup from the dropdown menu.
3. In the left-hand navigation, click Departments to load the main Departments page.
4. Locate the Department you want to delete.
5. In the Actions column, click the X icon.
6. The X icon will change to a minus (-) icon, and the Department fields will be greyed out to indicate it’s marked for deletion.
7. Once done, click Save, and the page will refresh and remove the Department!
   💡 | Tip: After deleting a Department, navigate back to Employee Positions and assign any affected roles to an existing Department. This helps ensure schedules, filters, and reports continue to display accurate and complete information.

Frequently Asked Questions About Contractors

Have questions about managing departments? Whether you’re wondering who can make changes, how Sub-Departments work, or what happens when a Department is deleted, this section provides quick answers to help you manage your setup with confidence.

💡| Tip: Can’t find what you’re looking for? Contact our Support Team at support@pushoperations.com, or utilize our AI bot Astra for quick assistance!

💡 | Feedback: Have ideas or requests for managing departments? We’d love to hear from you! Submit your suggestions on our Roadmap & Ideas Page to help shape future updates

Q: Who can create or edit Departments?
A: Only Super Administrators and Team Administrators with permission to set up Departments.

Q: Can a Position be assigned to more than one Department?
A: No. Each Position can only be assigned to one Department at a time. If a role spans multiple teams, choose the Department that best reflects how it should appear in schedules and reports.

Q: What happens if I rename a Department?
A: Renaming a Department updates the name everywhere it’s used. The previous Department name will no longer appear in schedules or reports, and the new name will be reflected both going forward and when reviewing reports for past date ranges.

Q: Do Departments control employee access or permissions?
A: No. Departments are an administrative tool used for organizing and filtering information across your account. Employees don’t have visibility into how Departments are structured or used in the platform.

Q: Do I need to use Sub-Departments?
A: No. Sub-Departments are optional and are mainly used for additional filtering in the Scheduler.

Q: Are Sub-Departments included in reports?
A: No. Sub-Departments do not appear in reports; they are strictly used for additional filtering in the Scheduler. 

Q: What happens if I delete a Department?
A: When a Department is deleted, it is removed from the platform and can no longer be used for filtering schedules or reports. Positions that were previously assigned to that Department are not automatically reassigned—you’ll need to manually assign them to an existing Department.

📌 | Note: Deleted Departments cannot be recovered. We recommend reviewing with your team before deleting to ensure Positions are reassigned and reporting or scheduling workflows aren’t disrupted.

Additional Information

Need further help? Contact our Support Team at support@pushoperations.com or utilize our AI bot, Astra, for quick assistance.