HR-01Service / PSAAdministrator

How to Add and Manage Employees in CrmLeaf

All editions. Core feature - no add-on required. In the Payroll and HR edition, Add Employee is a step in the edition's Getting Started checklist.

Part 7 · Human Resources Core7 min readIncludes a Service / PSA lens

Availability: All editions. Core feature - no add-on required. In the Payroll and HR edition, Add Employee is a step in the edition's Getting Started checklist.

Overview

An employee record is the master people record in CrmLeaf. Each employee record is one-to-one with a User record, so the same person who appears in your HR data is also the account that logs in, is assigned tasks, clocks attendance, and applies for leave. Creating employees correctly is the prerequisite for attendance, leave, shifts and, where the add-on is enabled, payroll.

How It Works

You create the supporting master data first, then create the employee, then invite the person to activate their own login.

Create designations and departments → Add the employee → Invite the user → Complete HR details → Assign shift, leave and salary

Because the employee record and the User record are the same person, an employee added here can be given a role and module access as a User.
The employee's reporting manager establishes who approves that person's requests, such as leave and shift changes, where the approver permission is scoped to a manager.
Designation and department values come from the Designation and Department masters, so create those before adding people in bulk.
Employee records support additional HR data: bank details, nominees, skills, documents and visas.
Attendance and leave data recorded against an employee feeds Payroll when the Payroll add-on module is enabled.

Who Can Use This Feature?

Administrator

Add, edit and deactivate employee records.
Set the reporting manager, designation and department.
Record bank details, nominees, skills, documents and visas.
Send an email or link invitation so the employee can activate their login.

This functionality is available only to Administrators. Employees can view and maintain their own profile details, which is covered in How to Use Employee Self-Service.

Prerequisites

Your company profile is set up.
At least one designation exists in the Designation master.
At least one department exists in the Department master.
Your account has seats available under its plan. Employee creation is limited by the seat allowance in your package.

For Administrators

Step 1: Open the Employees list

Go to: HRMS → Employees

What to do: Review the existing employee list to confirm the person is not already recorded, for example under a different email address.

What to verify: The list loads and shows your current people.

Step 2: Add the employee record

What to do: Select Add and complete the employee record. Enter the person's name and email address, then set the designation, the department and the reporting manager. Complete every mandatory field before saving. Select Save.

What to verify: The new employee appears in Employees with the designation and department you selected.

What to do: Send the invitation to the employee. CrmLeaf supports onboarding by email invitation and by invitation link, so you can either send the invite from the record or share the link through your own channel.

What to verify: The employee can sign in and reach their own dashboard.

Step 4: Complete the HR details

What to do: Open the saved employee and complete the remaining sections: bank details for salary payment, nominees, skills, documents, and visa records where the person works under a visa. Upload supporting files against the document and visa entries.

What to verify: Each section you completed is saved on the employee record and the uploaded files open.

Step 5: Connect the employee to shift, leave and salary

What to do: Assign a shift schedule so attendance is measured against the correct working hours, set the employee's leave quotas, and where Payroll is enabled, assign the salary structure.

What to verify: The employee appears in the shift roster for the assigned shift and shows leave balances against your leave types.

Field and Option Reference

Field / Option	Description	Required
Name	The employee's name, used across HR, attendance and work records.	Yes
Email	The login identity for the linked User record and the address the invitation is sent to.	Yes
Designation	The job title, selected from the Designation master.	Yes
Department	The department the employee belongs to, selected from the Department master.	Yes
Reporting manager	The employee's manager, used for approval routing.	No
Bank details	Bank account information held against the employee for salary payment.	No
Nominees	Nominee details recorded for the employee.	No
Skills	Skills recorded against the employee.	No
Documents	Files stored against the employee record.	No
Visas	Visa records held for the employee.	No

Expected Result

The employee is saved and appears in Employees with a designation, department and reporting manager. The person can sign in with their own login and is available for shift assignment, attendance and leave.

Service / PSA lens

Why This Matters for Service Organisations

In a professional services organisation the people are the deliverable, so the employee list is also the resource pool every engagement is staffed from. A record carrying a reporting manager, designation, department, skills, documents and visas is the raw material behind a staffing decision.

How It Supports Professional Services

Skills, documents and visas sit on the same record as the designation and department, so grade, capability and client-site eligibility are held in one place rather than in a separate spreadsheet.
The project templates shipped for IT Services, Marketing Agency, Creative Agency and Legal Services assign every task an Owner Role — Business Analyst or QA Engineer in IT Services, Brand Strategist or Copywriter in a creative agency — and the Excel template import maps those values onto departments or teams. Designation and department structure is therefore what makes a delivery methodology reusable across clients.
Because the employee record and the User record are the same person, the resource who is staffed is the identity that is assigned tasks, logs billable time and submits a weekly timesheet.
A project costing rate per hour is not a stored employee field. Salary exists through the Payroll add-on module and billable earnings come from an hourly rate in time tracking, so cost-based engagement analysis such as project margin has to be derived outside the product.

Typical Service Workflow

Client → Engagement → Project → Resource → Delivery → Time → Billing

Employee records sit before the resource step: they are what project members, task assignees and timesheet owners are drawn from. CrmLeaf links the record to attendance and leave; matching skills and grade to an engagement remains the firm's decision.

Other Product-Type Use Cases

The same record carries site engineers and installation crews in the Solar and Construction editions, production staff in Manufacturing, and administrative employees in any edition.

How to Manage Designations — where a grade ladder lives.
How to Manage Departments — the units Owner Role maps onto.
How to Import a Project Template from Excel — that mapping in practice.
How to Use Resource Utilization Views — reads this people data.
How to Submit and Approve Weekly Timesheets — what a staffed resource submits.

Important Notes

Menu names and their position can differ between product editions and can be customised for your account, so your sidebar may not match these paths exactly. Use Search or your Quick Access items if you cannot find a screen.
An employee record and a User record are the same person. Changing the email address changes the login identity.
The number of employees you can create is governed by the seat allowance in your plan. Confirm your allowance before a large onboarding exercise.
Salary structures, payslips and statutory items require the Payroll add-on module. Confirm it is included in your plan.

Common Scenarios

Example: onboarding a new joiner in one sitting. Add the employee with name, email, designation, department and reporting manager, send the invitation, and upload the identity documents. Then assign the shift and leave quotas so the person can clock in and apply for leave on day one.

Example: onboarding a whole department. Create the department and its designations first, then use the import route rather than adding each person by hand. See How to Import Employees.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Possible Cause	Resolution
The designation or department list is empty.	The master data has not been created.	Create the entries in Designation and Department first.
The employee record cannot be saved.	A mandatory field is empty.	Complete every mandatory field, then select Save.
A new employee cannot be created.	The seat allowance in your plan is reached.	Review your plan's employee allowance and deactivate records that are no longer needed.
The employee cannot see any modules after signing in.	No role or module access has been assigned to the linked User.	Assign the role and module access as described in How to Invite Users and Assign Roles.
Leave requests are not reaching the right person.	The reporting manager is not set, or the approver permission is not configured.	Set the reporting manager and check the leave approval permissions for the role.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an employee the same as a User in CrmLeaf?

Yes. The employee record is one-to-one with a User record, so HR data and login access belong to the same person.

Can I onboard employees without sending an email?

Yes. Onboarding is supported by email invitation and by invitation link, so you can share the link through your own channel.

Do I have to record bank details, nominees and visas?

No. Those sections are optional and can be completed later. Bank details are needed where you process salary payments.

Can a hired candidate become an employee automatically?

Yes, where the Recruitment add-on module is enabled. A hired candidate can be converted into an employee, as described in How to Send Offer Letters and Hire a Candidate.

Still need a hand?

Our support team answers on business days. Reference HR-01 so we can jump straight in.

Contact support