Sage HR Essentials: an employer's guide

Summary

This article explains all you need to know about Sage HR Essentials, as a Sage Payroll user.

Description

As part of your Sage Payroll UK subscription, you have free access to Sage HR Essentials.

What is Sage HR Essentials?

If you have set up Online Payslips in Sage Payroll, you may already use Sage HR today.

If not, Sage HR integrates with Sage Payroll as part of your subscription.

It enables you to manage several HR tasks. It provides an engaging experience for your employees.

With Sage HR Essentials, you can:

Allow your employees access to payslips and P60s online, including on a mobile app
View time off information to process payroll for statutory and company leave policies
Save emergency contacts for your employees
Store and track Right to Work documents in a secure environment

New employees added to Payroll or HR Essentials updates in the other software. This saves you from entering the same information twice. This is also true for any changes you make to employee records in either software.

As well as accessing payslips and P60s, employees can edit their details in HR Essentials. This will also update Sage Payroll.

You can download the app from the following locations:

Download the Sage HR mobile app for Android (opens in a new tab)

Download the Sage HR mobile app for Apple (opens in a new tab)

NOTE: You can still print and email payslips and P60s if you want to.

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Before you start >

Before you set up your employee access to Sage HR Essentials you need to:

Log in to Sage Payroll as the user registered as the business owner. Only this user has access to the employer options for Sage HR Essentials
Enter a valid email address for each employee you invite. They receive an activation email as part of the process
Enter a valid National Insurance number for each employee you invite

Set up Sage HR Essentials >

How you set up Sage HR Essentials depends on whether you already use Online Payslips.

I already use Online Payslips

In that case, integration between Sage Payroll and Sage HR Essentials is automatic.

To access Sage HR Essentials:

Find the Introducing Sage HR Essentials window on the Payroll Summary screen.
Select Go to Sage HR Essentials.

You can also:

From the top toolbar, select Payroll.
From the Switch Product drop-down menu, select HR.

I do not use Online Payslips

You need to activate Sage HR Essentials before you can use it.

Find the Introducing Sage HR Essentials window on the Payroll Summary screen.
Select Activate Sage HR Essentials.
Once activated, to access Sage HR Essentials, from the same window, select Go to Sage HR Essentials.

Invite your employees to Sage HR >

To invite your employees to Sage HR:

From the Employees tab, select Bulk Actions.
Select the relevant employees, then Invite to Sage HR.
Once the invitations are complete, you can select Close, or Go to Sage HR. The Pay Document Preference in each employee record changes to Online.

NOTE: You can only invite employees to Sage HR if they have a unique email address in their employee record

Your employee will receive an email invitation to Sage HR. This contains the link to access their employee portal.

The next time you complete your pay run, payslips publish for those employees.

The payslips generates regardless of invite status.

Check if the employee has accepted the invite:

Select the Employee tab and select the employee in question.
Select the Pay Document Preferences tab.
- You should see Online highlighted.
- If a Remove Access button shows the employee has accepted the invitation.
- If a Resend Invitation button is still there they have not yet accepted

View online payslip and P60 data >

After you have set up Sage HR Essentials, online payslips generate on the pay date you decide.

You can publish P60's in Sage HR Essentials as part of your payroll year end process.

Get more information on how to view them in Sage HR Essentials.

Read our Sage HR guide, View employee payslips and P60s

Resend the employee email invite >

To resend an employee invitation:

From the Employees tab select Pay Document Preferences.
Select Resend Invitation.

The invitation email expires after 24 hours.

Change an employee’s email address >

You change an employee's email address via Sage Payroll. For detailed steps, use our guide, Change an employee's email address in Sage HR Essentials.

NOTE: After completing these steps, employees receive an invitation to Sage HR. This goes to the new email address. They can no longer access Sage HR with their old email address.

Remove access for an employee >

If an employee leaves the business, you can remove their access to Sage HR:

Select the Employees tab and select the employee.
From the Pay Document Preferences tab, select Remove Access.

Payslip corrections >

If you make a correction before you publish online payslips:

Publish the payslips as normal

If the publish date has passed:

Finish making the correction, and republish any payslips that have changed.

From the Completed Pay Run screen, select Publish Payslips.

This uploads the corrected payslips and overwrites the existing ones.

What your employee sees >

After inviting your employees, they receive an invitation email to Sage HR. This contains the link to access their employee portal.

Once your employee has logged in, the Dashboard view opens in Sage HR Essentials.

With Sage HR Essentials, your employees can:

View and download their payslips and P60s. Your employee receives an email each time a new payslip is available
Add emergency contact details
Upload documents
View their calendar and request time off
Update their personal details. This will update their record in both Sage HR Essentials and Sage Payroll

Get help with what your employees will see in Sage HR Essentials.

Read our article Sage HR Essentials: what my employees will see article

Fair usage policy >

Your Sage Payroll support subscription includes the following usage limits.

The limit applies per company. The usage doesn't include historical payslips.

Employee tiers	Maximum per month
Up to 15	100
Up to 25	200
Up to 50	400
Up to 75	600
Up to 100	800

If you need more than the stated usage per month, please contact our Sales team to move to the next employee tier. If you already use more than the fair usage limit, we’ll contact you to discuss your options.