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Employee import template

To help you set up employees, there is an Excel import template you can download and complete to import employee information into Sage HR.

Janice Bell avatar
Written by Janice Bell
Updated over 7 months ago

If you have a large number of employees, you can save time by importing your employee details, rather than manually setting up each employee individually.

To help you capture all the necessary details to import, you can download and complete an Excel template.

📎NOTE: If you use Sage HR integrated with Sage 50 Payroll, if you add employees this way, they won't be linked to a record in payroll until they're added to Sage 50 Payroll and their payslips are uploaded for the first time.


Download the import template

  1. On the main menu, click Company, then click Import.


  2. Click the Download template link.


  3. In your Downloads folder locate and open the Sage HR Import Template Excel file.

  4. Enter your employee details in each of the data fields.

  5. Once complete save the changes.


Import template data fields

To successfully import your employee details, the import file must have the following fields:

Required employee data fields

  • First name

  • Last name

  • Work email - This will be used to sign into Sage HR. This is case sensitive so ensure no capital letters.

    ⚠️CAUTION: If you're using the Import template to update details of employees that already exist in Sage HR, the email address must match. If it doesn't, a new duplicate employee profile will be created with the new email address.

  • Password - This must be at least eight characters long and must match at least three out of these four conditions: a lowercase letter, an uppercase letter, a number, and a special character.

  • Employment start date - This field must be formatted as Date as DD/MM/YYYY.

Optional data fields

You can also enter other employee details, including date of birth, gender, home address, marital status, nationality, etc.

To save time, we recommend you also complete the following data fields:

  • Employment status - Enter Full-time, Part-time, Contract or Intern. If you leave this field blank, Full-time is assigned by default

  • Position - Type any value and the import automatically creates these positions

  • Reports to - enter the email address of the person who the employee reports to and who approves the employee's time off requests. If you leave this field blank, the admin user is assigned as the default approver

  • Location - Type any value and the import automatically creates these locations

⚠️CAUTION: Don't edit the format of the import file, only enter data in the relevant fields.


Check import template

Once your import template is complete, please check it against our Employee Import Checklist


Next steps

Once you are confident everything is correct and meets our checklist criteria, you can import your employees' details into Sage HR.


Return to Set up Sage HR

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