Plane is gradually rolling out a new onboarding experience. If your workspace still uses the previous onboarding flow, refer to the guides labeled (classic).
This guide walks through how to onboard a U.S. employee in Plane. During onboarding, both admins and employees complete tasks required to establish the employment relationship and prepare the employee for payroll.
The example below shows a full onboarding project with the tasks required to complete onboarding.
1. Start employee onboarding
To begin onboarding a U.S. employee:
Go to Add team member.
Enter the employee’s basic details:
First and last name
Personal email
Select United States as the country.
Select Employee as the employment type.
When the country is set to the United States, the employee is hired directly through your company and paid through Plane’s U.S. payroll system.
Next, choose how you want to proceed:
Start onboarding – immediately starts the onboarding process and sends the employee an invitation to Plane so they can begin completing their tasks.
Save for later – creates the employee profile without starting onboarding. You can start onboarding later from the employee’s profile.
2. Set role, compensation, and start date
During onboarding, both the admin and the employee complete tasks to establish the employment relationship and prepare the employee for payroll.
Set role
Provide the employee’s job title and a description of their responsibilities. These details may appear in employment documents and internal records.
You can also optionally assign a manager and department.
Next, specify where the employee will work by selecting Work from home or Office. If the employee works from an office, choose the appropriate office location.
The work location is important because it determines the employee’s state tax jurisdiction. Plane uses this information later to verify whether your company is registered to run payroll in the employee’s work state.
If additional state tax registrations are required, Plane will flag this during the compliance review later in the onboarding process.
Set compensation
Define how the employee will be paid.
First select the wage type, such as a yearly salary or hourly wage. Then enter the employee’s regular earnings and select the appropriate pay schedule.
Plane automatically calculates a pay breakdown preview based on the information you enter to help you confirm that the employee’s compensation aligns with the selected pay schedule before continuing.
Set start date
Specify the date when the employee will begin working.
Plane shows a preview of the employee’s first paycheck based on the selected start date and pay schedule.
The preview includes:
The pay period that includes the start date
The pay date for that payroll
The amount of the first paycheck
Whether the paycheck is prorated based on the employee’s start date
If the employee starts in the middle of a pay period, Plane calculates the prorated amount automatically.
In some cases, the pay period containing the start date may already be closed. When this happens, Plane will display a notice indicating that an off-cycle payroll may be required to cover the earlier dates.
The examples below show how the first paycheck preview changes depending on the employee’s start date.
3. Employee completes their profile
After accepting their invitation, the employee sees a dedicated onboarding page showing only the steps they are responsible for completing.
The employee completes the following steps:
Sign up for Plane – the employee accepts the invitation and creates their Plane account.
Provide personal details – the employee enters their legal name, date of birth, and citizenship.
Enter administrative details – the employee provides required identification information, including their Social Security Number (SSN).
Add address – the employee enters their residential address. For U.S. payroll, the address must be located in the United States.
Set up bank account – the employee adds the bank account for direct deposits.
Complete withholding forms – the employee completes Form W-4 to determine federal tax withholding. If required, the employee may also complete a state withholding form. The employee then reviews and signs the forms electronically.
Choose tax form delivery – the employee selects how they would like to receive year-end tax documents such as Form W-2.
Start employment eligibility verification – the employee begins the Form I-9 process by completing Section 1 and providing identity documentation.
Admins can complete some of these steps on behalf of the employee if needed. However, tasks that require the employee’s personal signature or legal attestation must be completed directly by the employee.
4. Complete compliance tasks
Some onboarding tasks must be completed by the company to finalize employment compliance.
These tasks appear in the Compliance checklist.
Complete employment eligibility verification (Form I-9)
After the employee completes Section 1 of Form I-9, a company user must review the employee’s identity documentation and complete Section 2.
During this step, the employer or authorized representative:
Reviews the identity and work authorization documents uploaded by the employee
Confirms that the documents appear genuine and relate to the employee
Indicates whether an alternative DHS-authorized verification procedure was used
Signs the employer certification and provides their title and name
Once completed, the I-9 verification requirement is satisfied.
Review tax registration requirements
Plane checks whether your company is registered to run payroll in the employee’s work state.
If payroll accounts have not yet been set up in that state, Plane will show a notice indicating that registration is required. Selecting the Needs attention notice opens the Payroll issues page, where you can review the missing registration details and complete the required setup.
In some cases, registration is non-blocking, meaning payroll can still run while the registration is completed. However, state payroll accounts should be established as soon as possible to avoid potential compliance issues, penalties, or delays in tax filings.
The example below shows how Plane notifies you when payroll registration is required for an employee’s work state.
Need help with state payroll registrations?
Plane offers a service to manage payroll tax accounts. If you would like information, contact Plane support.
5. Track onboarding progress
Admins can view the full onboarding project, including every checklist and task, and track progress across all steps as show in earlier examples.
Employees see a simplified onboarding page that shows only the tasks they are responsible for completing. Tasks assigned to admins or other company users are not visible to the employee.
Once onboarding is complete, the employee gains access to the rest of the Plane application. The onboarding page remains visible for a short period after completion (about one week) and then disappears automatically.
6. Finish onboarding
Onboarding is complete once all required tasks have been finished.
At that point:
The employee’s profile is fully set up
Required tax and compliance forms are completed
Payroll setup is finalized
The employee is ready to be included in payroll runs according to the selected pay schedule