Account foundations

You've just got access to your HubSpot account. The first thing you're probably thinking is "where do I even start?"

I get it. HubSpot has hundreds of settings, and if you configure the wrong things first, you'll be fixing it for months. I've seen companies skip the account foundations, start building campaigns immediately, and then realize six weeks later that their timezone is wrong and all their reporting is off.

This chapter walks you through the foundational setup that every HubSpot account needs. We're talking about the settings that affect everyone: timezone, currency, teams, users, permissions, and the tools that keep your team connected.

These aren't the exciting bits. Nobody brags about configuring timezones. But if you don't do this properly, everything else breaks. Your emails send at the wrong time. Your reports show data in the wrong currency. Your team can't find each other. Your notifications go to the wrong Slack channel.

Do this chapter properly, and you'll never think about it again. Skip it, and you'll be fixing problems for months.

Before you invite anyone to your HubSpot account, you need to configure the settings that affect everyone. These are account-wide settings that can't be changed per-user.

Set your timezone

Navigate to Settings (gear icon in the top right) → Account Defaults → General.

Your timezone determines when scheduled emails send, when reports reset, when workflows trigger, and how timestamps appear throughout HubSpot. If you're in London and your account is set to New York time, your "9am email" goes out at 2pm.

Choose the timezone where your business operates. If you're a distributed team, choose where your main office is or where leadership sits. You can't have different timezones for different users, so this is an account-wide decision.

Once you've set this, don't change it unless you move headquarters. Changing timezone retroactively affects all historical data and can break scheduled workflows.

Configure your currency

In the same General settings area, set your default currency.

This determines how deal values, revenue reports, and forecasting display throughout HubSpot. If you're a UK business, set it to GBP. If you're European, set it to EUR. If you work with multiple currencies, you can enable multi-currency later, but you still need a default.

HubSpot doesn't convert currencies automatically. If you set your default to USD but close deals in EUR, you'll need to manually convert or enable the multi-currency feature (which is a Professional or Enterprise feature).

Get this right now. Changing your default currency after you've created deals means all your historical revenue data displays in the wrong currency.

Set your company name and address

Further down in General settings, add your company name and business address.

This information appears in your email footers (required for GDPR and CAN-SPAM compliance), shows on documents and quotes you send to customers, and populates your HubSpot profile.

Use your legal business name here, not your brand name if they're different. The address should be your registered business address. You'll use this for compliance purposes, so make sure it's accurate.

Configure date and number formats

In Settings → Account Defaults → General, you'll also see date format and number format options.

Date format determines whether dates display as DD/MM/YYYY (UK style) or MM/DD/YYYY (US style) throughout your account. Choose what your team expects to see. If everyone on your team is used to seeing dates written as 25/12/2024, don't set it to 12/25/2024 just because HubSpot defaults to US format.

Number format determines whether thousands are separated by commas (1,000) or periods (1.000). Again, choose what your team expects. These are display preferences, not data storage preferences, so they only affect how numbers appear in the interface.

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Teams in HubSpot group users together and help you organize permissions, routing rules, and reporting. If you don't set up teams properly, you can't route leads to specific groups or report on team performance.

Create your team structure

Navigate to Settings → Users & Teams → Teams.

Think about how your business is organized. Do you have separate marketing and sales teams? Do you have regional teams (UK sales, EU sales, US sales)? Do you have product lines that need separate teams?

Create teams that match your real organizational structure. Don't create teams based on how you wish your org chart looked. Create teams based on how work actually gets assigned today.

For example, if you have an inbound sales team and an outbound sales team, create both teams. If you have a content team and a demand gen team within marketing, create both. You can always add or reorganize teams later, but starting with your actual structure makes everything easier.

Assign team managers

For each team you create, assign a team manager.

The team manager can manage users within their team, view team reports, and receive notifications about team activity. This should be the actual person who manages that team in real life, not whoever happens to be the HubSpot admin.

If you don't assign team managers, everyone defaults to being managed by the account admin, which creates a bottleneck when someone needs access changes or has questions.

Configure team properties

Some teams need specific properties configured. For example, sales teams might need specific deal pipelines assigned to them. Service teams might need specific ticket pipelines.

You can configure these in Settings → Objects → Deals (or Tickets) and assign default pipelines or properties per team. This ensures that when a deal or ticket gets assigned to someone on that team, it goes to the correct pipeline automatically.

Don't worry if you don't have pipelines set up yet. You can come back and configure this after you've built your pipelines in the Marketing Hub or Sales Hub configuration playbooks.

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Now that your account settings and teams are configured, it's time to invite your team. But before you send invitations, you need to understand how HubSpot licenses work.

Understand seat types

HubSpot has different types of seats depending on which hubs you've purchased:

Core seats: These come with every hub and let users view data and use basic features. Core seats are free and unlimited.

Paid seats: These let users create and edit content, send emails, create deals, and use advanced features. The number of paid seats depends on your subscription level (Starter, Professional, Enterprise).

Sales or Service seats: If you've purchased Sales Hub or Service Hub, you have a specific number of seats for those hubs. These users can create deals, make calls, create tickets, etc.

Before you invite anyone, check Settings → Account → Subscription & Billing to see how many paid seats you have available. Don't invite 20 people if you only have 10 paid seats, or half your team won't be able to do their jobs.

Invite users with appropriate permissions

Go to Settings → Users & Teams → Users and click "Create user" in the top right.

Enter the person's email address and name. Choose which team they belong to (from the teams you created earlier). Then assign their seat type:

For marketers who need to create campaigns, emails, and forms: assign a Marketing Hub seat.

For sales reps who need to create deals and log activities: assign a Sales Hub seat.

For support staff who need to manage tickets: assign a Service Hub seat.

For executives or analysts who just need to view reports: assign a core seat (free).

Set permission levels

After assigning a seat type, you need to set permission levels. HubSpot has several permission sets:

Super admin: Full access to everything, including billing and account settings. Only assign this to people who genuinely need it (usually 1-2 people).

Account access: Can view and edit most things but can't change account settings or billing. This is appropriate for team leaders and managers.

Team only: Can only view and edit data related to their team. Sales reps should typically have team-level access so they only see their own deals and contacts.

View only: Can view data but not edit anything. Good for executives, analysts, or contractors who need visibility but shouldn't change data.

Start restrictive. It's easier to give someone more access later than to clean up after they've accidentally deleted half your database.

Send invitations

Once you've configured their seat, team, and permissions, click "Send invitation."

The user will receive an email with a link to set up their password and access HubSpot. They won't be able to do anything until they accept the invitation and create their account.

Don't invite everyone at once if you have a large team. Invite key users first (team leads, admins), get them set up, then invite the rest. This prevents 40 people asking questions simultaneously.

Your team probably uses other tools besides HubSpot: Slack for communication, Zapier for automation, meeting tools like Zoom or Google Meet. Connecting these now saves time later.

Connect Slack

Go to Settings → Integrations → Connected Apps and search for Slack.

Click "Connect app" and choose which Slack workspace to connect. You'll be redirected to Slack to authorise the connection.

Once connected, you can set up Slack notifications for important events: new deals created, forms submitted, meetings booked, deals closed. Configure these in Settings → Notifications → Slack.

Set up notifications thoughtfully. Nobody wants 50 Slack messages per day about every form submission. Instead, send high-priority notifications (deals above £10k, enterprise leads) to specific channels where people can actually act on them.

Connect Zapier

If you use Zapier to connect HubSpot with other tools, you'll need to authorise HubSpot's Zapier integration.

Go to Settings → Integrations → Private Apps (or use HubSpot's native Zapier integration if you're using the built-in version). Create a private app specifically for Zapier with only the scopes (permissions) you need.

Don't give Zapier full access to everything. If you're just syncing contacts, only give it contact read/write permissions. Limiting scope reduces risk if your Zapier account is ever compromised.

Test your Zapier connections before building complex workflows. Create a simple test zap (like "new HubSpot contact → post to Slack") to verify everything works.

Connect meeting tools

If you use Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams for meetings, connect them now.

Go to Settings → Integrations → Connected Apps and search for your meeting tool. Connect it, and HubSpot will automatically add meeting links to calendar invitations when someone books a meeting with you.

This means when a prospect books a meeting through your HubSpot meeting link, they automatically get a Zoom link in the confirmation email. No manual copying and pasting required.

Connect communication tools

If you use tools like WhatsApp, SMS platforms, or other communication channels, connect them in Settings → Integrations.

The goal here is to centralise communication. If a customer texts you, that conversation should log in HubSpot against their contact record. If they call, the call should log automatically. This creates a complete timeline of every interaction.

Don't connect every tool you've ever heard of. Connect the tools your team actually uses daily. Adding integrations you don't use just clutters your interface and makes it harder to find what matters.

Account foundations aren't exciting. Nobody gets promoted for correctly configuring timezone settings. But this boring configuration work is what separates HubSpot accounts that actually work from accounts that constantly need fixing.

You've now set up the foundational structure: timezone and currency are configured, teams match your business structure, users are invited with appropriate permissions, and your essential tools are connected.

The next chapters build on this foundation. We'll connect your domain and tracking so HubSpot knows who's visiting your website. We'll set up your brand kit so everything looks consistent. And we'll import your existing data so your team has context on every contact.

But for now, your account structure is solid. Everything else we build will work properly because we got the foundations right.