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Default Teams: How Do They Work?

Kawan Jefferies
Updated

Overview

Default user teams help structure your organization within Custodia. They ensure every user is properly assigned, approval workflows run smoothly, and reporting remains consistent across the platform.

Teams are not just labels. They directly impact how approvals are routed, how users are grouped, and what data they can access

What Is a User Team?

A user team (also referred to as an org team) represents a group within your organization, such as a department, region, or functional unit.

Every active user must belong to at least one team.

Teams serve three main purposes:

  • Organizational structure
    • Reflects how your company is set up (departments, regions, reporting lines) 
  • Approval routing 
    • Determines who is responsible for approving requests like expenses, cards, or activities 
  • Access and visibility 
    • Controls what data, transactions, and reports a user can view

What Is a Default User Team?

A user can belong to multiple teams, but only one is marked as their default team.

The default team acts as the user’s primary team and is used as the system’s reference point for:

  • Approval routing 
  • Manager relationships 
  • Reporting and visibility

Example:

A user may be part of both a Finance team and a cross-functional project team. Their default team would typically be Finance, which determines their approval chain and reporting structure.

Company Default Team

In addition to user-level defaults, there is also a company default team.

This is the team that new users are automatically assigned to when they are created.

It ensures:

  • No user is left without a team 
  • Users can immediately participate in workflows 
  • Organizational structure remains intact from day one

The company default team is configured during setup and can be updated by an administrator in Company Defaults.

How Default Teams Are Used

1. New User Onboarding

When a new user is added (manually, via CSV import, or through an integration):

  • They are automatically assigned to the company default team 
  • That team is set as their default team

This allows the user to:

  • Appear in the organization immediately 
  • Submit requests without additional setup 
  • Be included in approval workflows

Administrators can later update or expand team assignments as needed.

2. Approval Workflows

Default teams play a critical role in how approvals are routed.

Team-Based Approvals

Workflows can route requests to an entire team.

Examples:

  • Finance review step routed to the Finance team 
  • Regional approval routed to a specific office

Any member of that team can act as an approver.

Manager-Based Approvals

  • When approvals depend on a manager:
  • The system looks at the user’s default team 
  • The team leader is treated as the user’s manager 
  • If needed, the system moves up the team hierarchy to find the correct approver

Important:

Changing a user’s default team can change who approves their requests.

3. Reporting and Visibility

The default team determines how users appear across the platform:

  • User lists display each user with their default team 
  • Filters use team assignments to narrow results 
  • Reports and transaction views can group data by team

The default team acts as the primary reference for all reporting.

4. Fallback Protection

Custodia ensures that every user always has at least one team.

  • A user cannot be left without a team 
  • If all team assignments are removed, the system reassigns the user to the company default team

This prevents issues with approvals and visibility.

Managing Default Teams

Set the Company Default Team

  • Navigate to Company Defaults 
  • Select or update the default team for new users

Note:

If your company only has one team, it is automatically set as the default.

Change a User’s Default Team

  1. Go to the user profile or Team-User Mapping 
  2. View the user’s team assignments 
  3. Select the Default checkbox for the desired team

The system ensures only one default team is selected at a time.

Add a User to Multiple Teams

  • The first team assigned becomes the default automatically 
  • Additional teams are added as secondary memberships 
  • The default team can be changed at any time
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