Welcome to Productive! This checklist walks new admins through the organization-wide setup, grouped by when you'll actually need it. Work through it in order, or jump to whatever's relevant right now.
Not doing this setup yourself? If you're joining as a manager, see Getting Started as a Manager in Productive, our Academy course.
Set up first
Company info: legal name, address, logo, fill this in whether you're one entity or several. Setting up subsidiaries
General settings: time zone, work week, fiscal year. General settings
Service types & rate cards: what you bill for, and at what rate. Service types · Rate cards
Login security: SSO or 2FA, decided before you invite anyone. SSO overview · 2FA
User permissions & invites: who gets in, and what they can touch. Permission sets · Adding new users
Cost rates & holiday calendar: needed the moment anyone logs time. Cost rates · Holiday calendars
Invoicing basics: numbering, tax rates, sender email. General invoicing settings · Tax rates
Enable Productive AI for your organization first: Settings > Productive AI. This unlocks the Assistant, Skills, Connectors, and Agents for your whole organization, so your team can get answers and work smarter, without it landing on you. Productive AI: general information
Configure for daily use
Time tracking: expected worked time, tracking reminders, time tracking policies, timesheet submission, and approval options. Time tracking reminders · Time tracking policies · Time entry submission · Time approval
Expenses: turn on expense approval, add payment/reimbursement fields, set a default markup. Expenses: admin overview
Budgeting: expense/time approval policies and budget warning thresholds. Approval policies · Time warnings for budgets
Absence: leave types and approval policies. Setting up absence categories · Adding absence allowances to the team · Setting up absence approval policies
Refine as you grow
Data import & integrations: at your own pace. Data import · App Marketplace
Teams, Champions, employee custom fields: organize people once you know your structure. Teams · Champions · Employee fields
Document templates, resourcing placeholders, workflow customization, revenue recognition, and reusable templates: once you know how your team actually works. Document templates · Placeholders · Workflows · Revenue recognition · Guide to Creating Templates
Custom fields: organization-wide, add as reporting needs emerge. Creating custom fields
Sales pipelines if you're using the CRM module. Setting up pipelines
Let the AI Assistant help
The AI Assistant can do most of what's on this list just by asking. A few things worth knowing as an admin specifically:
Skills: as admin, you can build the shared Skills library your whole team draws from, a reporting format, a budget review checklist, a house style, instead of everyone reinventing their own. What are Skills? · How to create and manage Skills
Connectors: control which external apps the Assistant can connect to across your organization. Connectors
Agents: create Agents and decide who's allowed to create and manage them in your organization. AI Agents overview · Setting up and managing AI Agents
📌 The Assistant is connected to our Help Center and has insight into how things are set up in your workspace, so it can help with anything on this list, anytime, not just when you're stuck.
If you need an actual person, ask it to connect you with support, or click the ? icon in the top right to start a chat with our team directly.
Want to work through this checklist hands-on? Our Academy course walks new admins through every step, in detail, with videos and practical tasks.