---
title: "Managing employees for Administrators - Payhawk Help Center"
slug: "managing-employees"
description: "Update an employee's Payhawk role, teams, email address, and reimbursement details, turn on out-of-office mode for them, and search your list of employees."
updated: 2026-10-27T14:17:44Z
published: 2026-10-27T14:17:44Z
canonical: "payhawk.com/managing-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.

# Managing employees

When the business expands and your organization has a lot of new hires, it may become difficult to manage the employee records. Payhawk provides an option for you to quickly search through your employee records, update their Payhawk role, team, email addresses, and reimbursement details, and more.

> [!TIP]
> Group Payhawk Administrators can be edited at the group level only.

## Updating an employee's role and account details

To update the [Payhawk role](/help/payhawk-roles) or external ID of an employee:

1. Log in to the [Payhawk Web Portal](https://portal.payhawk.com).
2. Go to **Employees** > **Active** tab.
3. Select the desired employee by clicking on their name.
4. To update the Payhawk role of the employee, in the **Profile** > **Account** section, select the desired role from the **Role** drop-down menu.
5. To update the external ID of the employee, in the **Profile** > **Account** section, fill in the desired ID under the **External ID** field.

![Role drop-down on the Profile tab of an employee's record.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Adm%3ASettings/employee_role_dropdown_20261015_ai.png)

## Adding and deleting teams for employees

You can add and remove teams for active Payhawk users:

1. Go to **Employees** > **Active** tab.
2. Select the desired employee by clicking on their name.
3. Under **Teams**, click on **Edit**.
4. In the panel that opens, from the drop-down menu select the team to which you want to add the employee.
5. Alternatively, to delete a team in which the employee is a team member, hover over the desired team and click on **X**.

![Teams section of an employee's record and the panel for editing their teams.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Adm%3ASettings/employee_edit_teams_20261015_ai.png)

From here you can only assign employees to teams as team members. For adding employees to teams as Team Managers, see the article about [assigning team managers to your team](/help/assigning-team-managers-and-team-members).

## Updating an employee's reimbursement details

You can also [update the reimbursement details of employees who are active Payhawk users](/help/updating-employees-reimbursement-details), that is, have registered with Payhawk.

## Updating an employee's email address

When registering in Payhawk, each employee provides an email address with which they are identified in the system and where they receive notifications about the issuing of new cards, returned expenses, and so on.

### Manually updating employees’ emails

As a Payhawk Administrator, you can manually change the emails of [employees fulfilling the Payhawk Accountant and Payhawk Employee roles](/help/assigning-team-managers-and-team-members) when needed:

1. Go to **Employees** > **Employees**.
2. Select the desired employee record by clicking on it.
3. In the panel that opens, click on the three dots menu and select the **Change email** option.
4. In the panel that opens, enter the new email address of the employee.
5. Click on **Save**.

![Change email option in the three-dot menu of an employee's record and the Change email panel.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Adm%3ASettings/employee_change_email_20261015_ai.png)

### Updating emails for invited users

If the user has been invited and has not yet registered (**Invited** status), you cannot change their email directly. Instead, you need to delete the pending invitation and send a new one to the correct email address.

### Things to note when updating a user's email

While updating employees’ emails, note the following:

- Each email address can be linked to only one user or invitation. If another user profile or a pending invitation already uses the email, remove that profile or invitation before you assign the email.
- An email address can belong to only one Payhawk company. If the email is already registered in another company, remove the user from that company first. Then invite them with that email. Removing a user from a company deactivates any Payhawk cards issued to them there. You can issue new cards once you've re-invited them.
- The user needs to register again with the new email. The invitation doesn't give them access by itself. They need to complete the registration flow with the new email address before they can log in.

## Enabling and disabling out-of-office for employees

If an employee is on vacation or sick, you can enable the out-of-office mode on their behalf and delegate their responsibilities to the relevant teammate:

1. Go to **Employees** > **Employees**.
2. Select the desired employee record by clicking on it.
3. Go to the **Out-of-Office** tab and switch on the toggle button.
4. In the tab that loads:
  1. Choose the start and end date of the absence.
  2. From the drop-down menu, select the teammate that will receive the requests intended for the employee during the defined period.

If you mistakenly selected the wrong employee, hover over the name and click on the **X** button.

![The teammate selected to receive requests during the out-of-office period.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Adm%3ASettings/employee_ooo_delegate_20261015_ai.png)

Note that requests that are pending approval by the out-of-office start date will be resent to the people to whom you delegate the work responsibilities.
  3. Click on **Save changes**.

![Out-of-Office tab with the toggle off, and turned on with the period, the teammate and Save changes.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Adm%3ASettings/employee_ooo_enable_20261015_ai.png)

Respectively, to disable the out-of-office mode for an employee, switch off the toggle button in the **Out-of-Office** tab.

## Searching for employees

You can search for employees by their first or last name (if active or if their name was added when they were invited), by email, and by role.

To search within the list of employees:

1. Log in to the [Payhawk Web Portal](https://portal.payhawk.com).
2. Go to **Employees** > **Employees**.
3. Click on the search (magnifying glass) bar and type in a search key. As a result, the system will display a list of related results if any.

![Employees list searched by the Accountant role.](https://cdn.payhawk.com/Adm%3ASettings/employee_search_20261015_ai.png)

## Useful resources

- [Inviting and deleting employees](/help/inviting-and-deleting-employees)
- [Creating, editing, and deleting teams](/help/creating-editing-and-deleting-teams)