---
title: "Inviting and deleting employees"
slug: "inviting-and-deleting-employees"
description: "Invite new employees to the Payhawk spend management platform, assign roles and delete users when they leave the company."
updated: 2026-10-27T14:17:40Z
published: 2026-10-27T14:17:40Z
canonical: "payhawk.com/inviting-and-deleting-employees"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://payhawk.com/help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Inviting and deleting employees

When new employees start to work at your company, you can invite them to your team structure in Payhawk via email, via SMS, or you can also add employees in bulk without sending them an invitation. When employees leave the organization, you need to remove them.

> [!TIP]
> To invite an employee to multiple entities, you can either use the [Payhawk multi-entity capabilities](/help/managing-employees-on-a-group-level) or add the user separately to each entity.

## Inviting employees via email or SMS invite

To invite employees to your organization in Payhawk:

1. In the [Payhawk Web Portal](https://portal.payhawk.com), open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Employees** > **Employees**.
2. Click on the **+ New** button.
3. In the dialog that opens, you can invite employees over email or with SMS to their cell numbers.
  1. To send an email invite, enter the email of the employee, select the [Payhawk role](/help/overview-of-employees-for-administrators) you want to assign to them, and click on **Invite**. As a result, the employee will receive an email with a registration link.

![The Add new employee panel with the employee email, name, team and user role fields.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Navigation%20images%20Desi_20261001/invite_employee_email.png)
  2. To send an SMS invite, enter the email of the employee and switch on the **Invite with SMS** toggle button. Fill in the employee name and cell number, select the [Payhawk role](/help/overview-of-employees-for-administrators), and click on **Invite**. As a result, the employee will receive an SMS with a registration link.

![The Add new employee panel with the Invite with SMS toggle on and the country code and phone number fields filled in.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Navigation%20images%20Desi_20261001/invite_employee_sms.png)

The pending invitation status of an employee will change, and the employee will move under the **Employees** > **Employees** > **Active** tab once they [register to Payhawk](/help/registering-to-payhawk-with-an-email-invite).

![The Employees app on the Active tab, listing active employees with their roles and status.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Navigation%20images%20Desi_20261001/employees_active_tab.png)

## Inviting employees when importing them in bulk

You can also add employees in bulk without sending them an invitation right away, for example, if you want to set up your teams and approval workflows first.

To import employees without inviting them:

1. Open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Employees**, click on the three-dot menu next to **+ New**, and select **Import**.
2. Select **Add only** and click on **Generate template**.
3. Fill in the template and select **No** in its **Send invitation** column.
4. Upload the template, select the confirmation checkbox, and click on **Import**. As a result, the employees receive the Invited status but no invitation email. Any approvals assigned to them will wait until they register.
5. When you are ready to invite them, a Payhawk Administrator can open each employee under **Employees** > **Invited** and click on **Resend invite**. Until then, employees can still get access on their own through **Forgot your password?** or SSO (if your company uses it), and will still receive some other emails, such as card approval requests.

## Deleting employees

You can remove both active Payhawk users and employees with pending invitations from Payhawk.

> [!TIP]
> Group Payhawk Administrators can be removed [at the group level](/help/managing-employees-on-a-group-level) only.

To delete an employee from your company:

1. Open the app switcher in the top-left corner and go to **Employees** > **Employees**.
2. Select the desired employee by clicking on the record.
3. Click on the three dots menu and select the **Remove employee** option.
4. In the dialog that opens, if the user has cards with recurring payments, choose how to handle these cards:
  - Select the **Block reassignable cards and close the rest** option if you want to block the cards that can be reassigned and to close the rest of the cards for that user.

You can then manage reassignable cards through the pending task **Reassign or close cards** in your **Dashboard***.* After clicking on the pending task you will get redirected to the **Cards** app with all cards that need to be reassigned. You can [manage the cards one by one](/help/reassigning-cards-when-an-employee-leaves).
  - Select the **Close all cards now** option, if you want to close all cards immediately.
5. Confirm your choice and click on **Remove**.

![The Remove employee dialog listing the employee's cards, one with recurring payments, and the options to block reassignable cards and close the rest or close all cards now.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Navigation%20images%20Desi_20261001/remove_employee_dialog_cards.png)

If your company manages employees across multiple entities, you can also remove employees at the group level by [following a similar process](/help/managing-employees-on-a-group-level#h_4b84e4d4cf).

## Notes on employee removal

> [!TIP]
> The below-described information on removing employees applies to integrations with [HR systems (HRIS)](/help/hr-information-systems-hris) as well.

Before removing an employee:

- Make sure all unsubmitted expenses are submitted, as they will be lost once the employee is removed from the system.
- Make sure all reimbursable or other unpaid expenses are fully processed, as these cannot be completed once the employee is removed.
- Unpaid expense records will still be viewable in the system, but no further actions can be taken on them.

When you remove an employee from Payhawk:

- All historical data, including submitted expenses, transactions, reports, and activity logs, will remain accessible for financial and compliance purposes.
- The employee will no longer appear in the active employee list.
- Removed employees' historical data will continue to appear in the **All** view of relevant sections (for example, **Cards**, **Spend**) and can still be included in exports and reports.

## Useful resources

- [Managing employees](/help/managing-employees)
- [Creating, editing, and deleting teams](/help/creating-editing-and-deleting-teams)
- [Using SSO and setting up SAML with Payhawk](/help/using-sso-and-setting-up-saml-with-payhawk)