Initial Setup & Configuration

Configure your agency profile, roles, pay rules, and PTO types before going live.

After your first login, a few one-time configuration steps get your instance ready for day-to-day use. This article covers the essential settings in the recommended order.

You need the Administrator role to access all of these settings. If you don't see a menu item, ask your agency's primary admin to grant you access.

1. Agency profile

Settings → Customer Info

Fill in your agency's legal name, address, primary phone number, and logo. This information appears on payroll exports and invoices, so accuracy matters here.

The time zone setting controls how timecard periods are calculated — set it to the time zone where your agency operates.

Hire2Hero ships with three built-in portal roles (Administrator, Candidate, Approving Client Contact). Within the Administrator portal, you can create custom roles to control which features each staff member can access.

Click Add role and give it a descriptive name (e.g. "Recruiter" or "Payroll staff").

Toggle the individual permissions this role should have.

Click Save. The new role is immediately available when inviting users.

Start with a restrictive role and add permissions as needed — it's easier to grant access than to audit over-permissioned users later.

3. Pay and bill rate defaults

Settings → Overtime Rules

Configure your standard overtime rules so that new placements calculate pay correctly without manual entry each time.

Overtime threshold — most US agencies use 40 hours per week; some healthcare contracts use 8 hours per day. Set this to match your agreements.
Overtime multiplier — typically 1.5×.
Double-time multiplier — used if your contracts include double time (typically 2×).

These are defaults. You can override them per placement.

4. PTO block types

Settings → Block Type

If your placed employees accrue paid time off, set up the block types they'll use when submitting timecards.

Click Add block type.

Enter a name — for example, "Vacation", "Sick", or "Holiday".

Toggle Is PTO on. This tells the system to track accruals for this block type.

Set PTO Accrual to Per Hour Approved or Per Hour Pending Approval depending on whether accruals should calculate from approved or submitted hours. (The default is Per Period, which grants a flat amount each pay cycle rather than accruing by the hour.)

Set the Accrual Amount (hours of PTO earned per hour worked). Common values:

Accrual Amount	Equivalent (40-hr weeks)
0.019	~1 week per year
0.038	~2 weeks per year
0.058	~3 weeks per year

Set an Accrual Cap if your PTO policy has one, then click Save.

PTO balances update automatically every time a timecard is approved — you don't need to adjust them manually.

5. Pre-launch checklist

Before you start creating placements and inviting candidates, confirm:

Agency profile is saved with correct name, address, and time zone
At least one non-admin staff member is invited and can log in
Overtime rules match your standard client agreements
PTO block types are created (if your agency offers PTO)

Next steps

Quick start — see how placements, timecards, and payroll work end to end
Managing candidates — add your first candidates
Managing clients — set up your first client and billing contact