Company Setup for Smooth HR

Help URL: https://smoothhiring.com/help/hrms/getting-started/company-setup

Before employees, payroll, or onboarding workflows run smoothly, your legal Company record and organizational masters must be in place. This guide walks through creating the company, configuring defaults that flow into HR and accounting, building department and designation trees, and validating readiness for payroll and pre-boarding.

Table of Contents

1. Why company setup comes first
2. Prerequisites
3. Create the Company record
4. Company fields that affect HR
5. Branch, Department, and Designation
6. Employee Grade and Employee Group
7. Holiday List and work calendar
8. HR Settings tied to company
9. Multi-company considerations
10. Validation checklist
11. Troubleshooting
12. Related guides

Why company setup comes first

Smooth HR uses Company as the legal employer entity. Nearly every HR transaction references Company:

Skipping company setup causes hard errors on Employee save and payroll submit.

Prerequisites

Open desk: /app/company from People → Setup → Company or Ctrl+K → Company.

Create the Company record

Step 1: New Company

1. Navigate to /app/company.
2. Click Add Company.
3. Enter Company Name (legal name as it should appear on payslips and offer letters).

Step 2: Country and currency

Step 3: Chart of accounts

Select or generate chart appropriate for your country. Payroll journals post to ledger accounts configured here.

Step 4: Save and set default

If this is your only entity, mark it as default in Global Defaults (System Settings) so transactions auto-fill Company.

Company fields that affect HR

Beyond basics, confirm on the Company form (HR-related sections may appear in your company profile):

Link HR Settings reminders (birthdays, holidays) to valid Sender Email so automated mails send from your domain.

Branch, Department, and Designation

Branch (/app/branch)

Use branches for physical locations or legal sub-entities when reporting headcount by site.

Department (/app/department)

1. Create a tree (for example Executive, Operations, Engineering).
2. Set Parent Department for hierarchy.
3. Assign Leave Approvers and Expense Approvers on department where your process requires.

Department appears on Employee, drives approval routing, and filters Employee Onboarding Template suggestions.

Designation (/app/designation)

Job titles (Software Engineer, HR Coordinator). Used for:

• Org display and reports
• Template matching for onboarding checklists
• Salary structure mapping (optional)

Employee Grade and Employee Group

Onboarding templates can filter by Employee Grade so executives get different document packs than hourly staff.

Holiday List and work calendar

1. Create Holiday List at /app/holiday-list with public holidays.
2. Assign to Company defaults or per Employee.
3. Leave and attendance modules use holiday lists to compute working days.

Misaligned holiday lists cause incorrect leave balances and attendance exceptions.

HR Settings tied to company

Open /app/hr-settings after company exists:

Company-specific onboarding templates: create separate Employee Onboarding Template rows per Company filter when operating multi-entity.

Multi-company considerations

Validation checklist

Before go-live, confirm:

• Company saved with country and currency
• At least one Department and Designation
• Holiday list assigned
• HR Settings saved (naming, onboarding email)
• Test Employee created under Company
• Leave Policy exists if using Leaves module
• Salary Structure Assignment for test employee if using Payroll
• One onboarding template with company filter tested via Preview Portal

Troubleshooting

Sample org structure

Below is a reference hierarchy for a mid-size US company — adapt names to your business:

Create departments before bulk employee import so CSV import maps cleanly.

Payroll readiness (when applicable)

After Company exists, payroll admins typically configure in this order:

1. Salary Component — earnings and deductions (/app/salary-component)
2. Salary Structure — bundle components (/app/salary-structure)
3. Payroll Period — define pay cycles (/app/payroll-period)
4. Salary Structure Assignment — link employee to structure (/app/salary-structure-assignment)
5. Payroll Entry — generate slips for a period (/app/payroll-entry)

Company default accounts must exist before first payroll submit — coordinate with finance before HR announces pay go-live.

Leave readiness (when applicable)

1. Leave Type — PTO, Sick, etc.
2. Leave Policy — bundle types with annual allocation rules
3. Leave Period — fiscal leave year
4. Leave Policy Assignment — assign policy to employees
5. Leave Allocation — opening balances

Set HR Settings → Leave and Expense Claim Settings for approver mandatory flags before employees submit requests.

Onboarding template readiness

Before first real hire:

1. Create Signature Template for offer letter / policy PDFs (/app/signature-template)
2. Build Employee Onboarding Template with company/department filters
3. Use Preview Portal on template
4. Run test Employee Onboarding submit to sandbox email

Data import notes

Match Employee Naming By in HR Settings before import — changing later does not rename existing IDs.

Post-setup communication

After masters are ready, notify managers with:

• Link to desk (/desk/people) and their role assignment
• Which Department they approve leave/expenses for
• Go-live date for self-service vs HR-entered requests
• HR contact for onboarding portal issues

Clear communication reduces duplicate Company or Department rows created by well-meaning managers.

Environment checklist (production)

Related guides

• Getting Started overview
• Desk navigation
• User roles & permissions
• Onboarding overview
• People: Company

Last updated: May 2026