Employee Records

The Employee record is the central person record in Smooth HR. It links a human being to your Company, Department, Designation, payroll, leave, expenses, performance, and — when configured — a User for self-service portal access.

Help URL: https://smoothhiring.com/help/hrms/people/employee-records

Table of contents

1. Overview
2. Who uses Employee records
3. Desk paths
4. Creating an Employee
5. From recruitment and onboarding
6. Key fields and tabs
7. Linking a User for portal access
8. Status and lifecycle
9. Common mistakes
10. Troubleshooting

Overview

Every HR transaction — leave, attendance, expense claim, salary slip, appraisal — references an Employee name. The record stores employment details, reporting structure, contact information, and links to job history when created from Job Offer.

Smooth HR runs in the cloud. Module sidebars (People, Recruitment, Expenses, Performance, Tenure, NextAI) appear after login. Use the left sidebar or search (Ctrl+K / Cmd+K) to open lists and workspaces.

Who uses Employee records

Desk paths

Creating an Employee

Manual creation

1. Open People → Employee → Add Employee.
2. Set First Name, Company, Date of Joining, Department, Designation.
3. Set Gender, Date of Birth if required by your policies.
4. Set Reports to for org chart and leave/expense approvers.
5. Save. Assign salary structure from Payroll when ready.

Naming series

If HR Settings uses Naming Series, the ID may look like HR-EMP-00042. If Full Name, the document name is the employee name — avoid duplicates.

From recruitment and onboarding

Typical hire flow:

flowchart LR
  JobOpening --> JobApplicant
  JobApplicant --> Interview
  Interview --> JobOffer
  JobOffer --> EmployeeOnboarding
  JobOffer --> Employee

1. Job Applicant is named by email (document name = email_id).
2. Interview rounds track feedback per Interview Round master.
3. Job Offer accepted → use Create Employee (Create Employee maps offer fields to Employee).
4. Employee Onboarding may run in parallel with e-sign via Signature Templates.

After Create Employee from Job Offer, personal email and name copy from the applicant record.

Key fields and tabs

Linking a User for portal access

1. Create User with employee's work email (or personal if that is login).
2. Assign roles: Employee, plus module roles as needed.
3. On Employee, set User ID to that user.
4. Employee can access leave, expenses, goals per permissions.

Without User ID, the employee cannot use self-service or the onboarding portal tied to their email.

Status and lifecycle

Use Employee Separation for structured offboarding; it can create a separation project with tasks.

Common mistakes

Troubleshooting

Bulk import and integrations

Use Data Import on Employee for CSV uploads. Include Company, Department, and Designation values that already exist. Import in batches and validate org chart after each batch.

API integrations should use stable Employee IDs from naming series rather than display names. External systems mapping by email should use the User email or personal/work email fields consistently.

When rehiring, decide policy: new Employee record with new joining date vs reactivating old record — payroll and tenure reporting differ.

Frequently asked questions

Can employees edit their own record?

Only if permissions allow; typically HR owns master data.

Where is job applicant link stored?

On Employee when created from Job Offer; field Job Applicant.

How do I deactivate without separation doc?

Set status Inactive — but Tenure separation is recommended for audit trail.

Related guides

• People overview
• Company
• Job Offer
• Employee Onboarding
• Employee Separation

Last updated: May 2026

Smooth LMS (training)