When you try to add an employee manually in Sage HR Online Services, you may get the following error:

Email already taken, if you think this has happened by mistake please contact support

This occurs if the employee has used this email address for another company before that uses Sage HR.

We'll run you through your options for what to do if you get this error.

NOTE: This is not the same as the error, 'This email address is already in use' when uploading payslips from Sage 50 Payroll. 

You can deal with this error the following ways:

• Add employee by uploading a payslip
• Link sister companies together
• Use a different email address
• Employee asks ex-employer to delete them

Add employee by uploading a payslip

Instead of adding an employee manually, add the employee by uploading their payslip.

No payslip available yet to upload?

If the employee doesn't have a payslip yet, but you want to add them to Sage HR Online Services now, you can upload a upload a 'dummy' payslip'.

For example, upload a payslip with a value of 1p so your employee is imported from Sage 50 Payroll into Sage HR Online Services.

NOTE: If the user isn't in Sage 50 Payroll, you must follow one of the other workarounds below.

Link sister companies together

If the email address is taken by one of your sister companies that also uses Sage HR, you can request a company link. This links your companies together and allows you to use the same email address for employees in both companies.

An admin for each company needs to contact either Sage HR or Sage 50 Payroll support to confirm this link. Once linked, you won't get the 'Email already taken' message unless the email is used by a different company. For example, an employee's ex-employer.

 NOTE: If the email address is used for another company not associated with your own, then a company link won't resolve this error message for you, and you must use the one of the other resolutions.

Employee provides a different email address

If your employee has another email address, you can add the employee using that email.

Employee contacts their previous employer

Your employee can contact their previous employer and ask them to delete their previous profile. Aftet they delete them, you can then use this email address to add them.

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