Set up departments and directors

Departments are the unit you allocate against: SEO, Paid media, Design, Content. Every billable entry belongs to one, and every retainer's allocations are split across them. This article creates departments and assigns directors.

Steps

1. Go to Settings, then Departments. If you ran the setup wizard, one department already exists per service you selected.
2. Click Add department, enter the name, and an optional weekly hour target used in capacity views.
3. Save.
4. Go to Team, open a person, and assign them to the department. Tick Is director to make them a director of it.
5. Go to Settings, then Tasks, and assign each task to a department so time entries roll up correctly.

What does a director get?

• The Approvals queue filtered to entries billed to their department, because the account team lacks the on-the-ground context to judge whether an individual's hours are accurate.
• Allocations across every client, read-only, scoped to the departments they direct.
• Team pacing on their dashboard: who is behind, on pace, or ahead of their weekly billable target, with the ability to set targets inline.
• Allocation alerts when a project's slice of their department gets close to its cap, with personal thresholds under Settings, then Notifications.
• Department revenue on the Department P&L page (currently in beta) so they can optimise for billing. Cost and margin stay admin-only.

What to check

• Media departments (paid media, influencer) are flagged to track external spend. Projects in those departments can carry campaign fees that feed profitability.
• A person can belong to several departments. Their idle salary cost can be split across them under Settings, then Cost allocations; see Fix data health and cost allocations.

Notes

Retainer pacing by department depends on this structure. Read Set up retainer periods and department allocations next.