Departments & Cost Codes
Organise your workers into departments and track time against project cost codes for better reporting and budget management.
What Are Departments?
Organise your workforce into logical groups.
Departments are organisational groups for your workers. They let you group people by team, function, or area — whatever makes sense for your business. For example, you might have departments called Warehouse, Office, Security, or Maintenance.
Departments make it easier to filter workers in reports, timesheets, and the dashboard. You can quickly see how many hours the Warehouse team worked last week, or compare attendance across departments.
Group workers by team or function for easier management and reporting
Warehouse, Office, Security, Maintenance, Picking, Packing
You do not have to use departments — they are entirely optional
A worker can be reassigned to a different department at any time
Managing Departments
Add, edit, and organise your departments.
Navigate to Operations > Departments
In the left-hand sidebar, click Operations, then click Departments. You will see a list of all existing departments.
Add a new department
Click the + Add Department button at the top of the page. Enter a name for the department and click Save.
Example: Warehouse, Office Admin, Security
Edit a department
To rename or update a department, click Edit next to its name. Make your changes and click Save.
Keep department names short and consistent. Avoid abbreviations that might confuse new team members. "Warehouse" is clearer than "WH" on reports.
Assigning Workers to Departments
How to put workers into the right groups.
You can assign a worker to a department when you first add them, or update it later by editing their profile. Each worker belongs to one department at a time.
Go to the Workers page
Click Workers in the sidebar.
Edit the worker
Click on the worker you want to assign to a department. Their profile will open for editing.
Select a department
Use the Department dropdown to choose the correct department. Click Save to apply.
If you move a worker to a new department, their historical timesheet data stays the same. The department change only affects future entries.
What Are Cost Codes?
Track time against projects, jobs, or budgets.
Cost codes (sometimes called job codes or project codes) let you track how workers spend their time across different projects or tasks. When a worker clocks in, they can select which cost code they are working under, and TempClock will record their hours against that code.
This is especially useful for businesses that need to allocate labour costs to specific projects, clients, or budget lines. When it comes to reporting, you can filter by cost code to see exactly how many hours (and how much money) have been spent on each project.
Allocate worker hours to specific projects, jobs, or budget codes
WH01-Picking, WH02-Packing, OFF01-Admin, PROJ-42-Refit
Cost code selection on the kiosk can be enabled or disabled
Filter timesheets and payroll reports by cost code
Managing Cost Codes
Add, edit, and organise your cost codes.
Navigate to Operations > Cost Codes
In the left-hand sidebar, click Operations, then click Cost Codes. You will see a list of all existing cost codes.
Add a new cost code
Click the + Add Cost Code button. Fill in the following fields:
- Code Name — a short, unique identifier (e.g. WH01-Picking)
- Description — an optional explanation of what this code covers (e.g. "Warehouse picking and sorting tasks")
Click Save to create the cost code.
Edit or disable a cost code
Click Edit next to any cost code to change its name or description. If you no longer use a cost code, you can disable it — disabled codes will not appear on the kiosk but will still be visible in historical reports.
Use a consistent naming convention for cost codes, such as a department prefix followed by a description (e.g. WH01-Picking, WH02-Packing). This makes them easy to find and understand.
Cost Code Selection at the Kiosk
How workers choose a cost code when they clock in.
When cost code selection is enabled, workers will see an extra step after they are recognised at the kiosk. Before confirming their clock-in, they are shown a list of active cost codes and asked to pick the one that applies to their current task.
This step is quick and simple — workers just tap the code that matches what they are doing. If they are unsure, they can ask their supervisor or select a general code.
What are you working on today, Sarah?
If your workers always work on the same cost code, you can set a default cost code on their profile. This pre-selects it at the kiosk so they only need to confirm rather than choose.
Using Departments & Cost Codes in Reports
Filter and analyse your data by group or project.
Both departments and cost codes appear as filter options throughout TempClock's reporting tools. You can use them to slice and dice your data in meaningful ways.
Cost code reports are particularly useful at the end of a project. You can see the total hours and cost against each code, making it easy to compare actual spend against budget.
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