Note: This article applies only to the Beta release of Plane's Unified payroll and HRIS release.
Add person
To add a new employee, you need to sign in to your account and go to People → Add person
Fill in basic information (name, United States for the country, and email)
Select ‘Employee’ for the employment type
Optionally add title, manager, and department
Next, select options for onboarding:
‘Send offer’ is used for new hires. The candidate will be emailed a summary of the job offer that they must accept before onboarding starts. They must also complete Form I-9 for employment eligibility verification. Skip this step if the person is already employed by your organization or if you want to manage the offer or I-9 requirements outside of Plane.
‘Add to payroll’ should always be selected when adding an employee to payroll.
Save and continue. You’ll manage the onboarding process on the Hiring page.
Complete onboarding tasks
The tasks associated with the onboarding process differ based on the options selected in the previous step. Tasks are organized by milestones which are used to summarize the progress through onboarding as shown below.
Each milestone has one or more tasks that are either immediately available or are dependent on other tasks. Available tasks can be completed in any order. Jump to the appropriate section for the details.
New hire process
The following tasks apply to the new hire process when the options ‘Send offer’ and ‘Add to payroll’ are selected.
Set compensation and start date
Set compensation
| An employee’s wage type can be yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, or hourly. |
Assign pay schedule | Assign the pay schedule for the employee to set the frequency of pay and pay dates. You may need to configure a pay schedule if the one you intend to assign isn’t available as an option.
Note: For salaried employees, Plane assumes 40 working hours per week to calculate the number of standard hours associated with a pay period. Hours are reported with regular earnings for salaried employees.
When hourly workers are assigned to a pay schedule, payroll items will be pre-populated with 0 hours for each pay period. You’ll need to enter and approve hours before the approval deadline for payments to be processed.
You can learn more about how payment amounts are calculated for different pay schedules. |
Set start date | The start date represents the employee’s first day at work. If the start date occurs in the middle of the first pay period, pay will be prorated according to the number of work days (non-weekend days) |
Review employment requirements
Review Form I-9 requirements | This task is informational only to let you know that we’ll ask the employee to fill out Form I-9 after being invited to Plane. You or your authorized representative will then be required to complete and sign Section 2 within 3 business days of the employee's first day of employment. |
Decide on background check | This task is used only to indicate if a background check is required or not on the offer summary. Plane currently does not provide a service to run background checks for US employees. |
Decide on optional benefits
Decide on additional incentives | This task is informational only. Additional incentives may be entered so they appear on the offer summary. Examples may include a signing bonus, stock options, remote work benefits, etc. |
Send offer summary
Review and approve offer summary | At this point in the process, you’ll have a chance to preview and approve the offer summary. It is sent to the candidate as soon as it is approved. If the candidate accepts it, they will be invited to get set up on Plane. |
👉 Assuming the employee accepts the offer, there will be three more milestones to complete, two of which are the employee's responsibility. Employees see a similar but simplified set of milestones and tasks.
Get set up on Plane
Provide personal information (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to provide personal information, including date of birth and SSN. |
Provide address information (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to provide a residential address. By default, this address is designated as their primary work location. This establishes the tax jurisdiction for state and local taxes.
The address entered may trigger a need for additional tax setup and filing authorizations if it is associated with a state that hasn’t already been set up.
Note: A future feature will allow you to define office or other locations as the primary work location. If the employee has a work location other than their residence, let us know so we can set that up for you. |
Add a payment method (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to add a bank account for direct deposit of payroll |
Get set up for payroll
Complete Form I-9: employment authorization (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to complete Form I-9. As the admin, you’ll have one more step to verify the information provided. |
Complete payroll tax withholdings forms (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to complete IRS Form W-4 and a state-specific tax withholding form if applicable. |
Provide electronic W-2 consent (employee task)
| The employee will be given a choice only receive their W-2 electronically. All employees will have access to electronic W-2s, but employees who don’t opt-in will receive a paper copy. |
Complete Form I-9
Complete and sign section 2 or 3 of | Review the information and supporting documentation provided by the employee to complete Form I-9. Plane doesn’t facilitate the electronic collection of employee identity documents. You’ll have to do this manually. Once this form has been completed, a PDF version is attached to the employee’s profile. |
Archive onboarding tasks
The final step to onboarding is archiving completed tasks. Once this is done, the employee will no longer appear on the Hiring page.
Add to payroll only
The following tasks apply to the process when all you only need or want is to add an employee to payroll, i.e. the ‘Add to payroll’ is the only option selected. This is a reduced set of tasks relative to the new hire flow because no offer letter or I-9 requirements are involved.
When transitioning from another payroll provider or running W-2 payroll internally, it is important to coordinate the timing of the first pay period so there is no overlap in tax withholdings and remittances.
Set compensation and start date
Set compensation
| An employee’s wage type can be yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, or hourly. |
Assign pay schedule | Assign the pay schedule for the employee to set the frequency of pay and pay dates. You may need to configure a pay schedule if the one you intend to assign isn’t available as an option.
Note: For salaried employees, Plane assumes 40 working hours per week to calculate the number of standard hours associated with a pay period. Hours are reported with regular earnings for salaried employees.
When hourly workers are assigned to a pay schedule, payroll items will be pre-populated with 0 hours for each pay period. You’ll need to enter and approve hours before the approval deadline for payments to be processed.
You can learn more about how payment amounts are calculated for different pay schedules. |
Set first pay period | Based on the pay schedule assigned, select the first pay period for the employee.
Also, take a moment to set the start date of the employee for tracking purposes. This should represent the date that the employee began working for your company, not the date they started to be paid with Plane. |
Invite employee to Plane
Send invitation | Complete this task to invite the employee to get set up on Plane |
👉 Employees see a similar but simplified set of milestones and tasks to complete onboarding. Once they’ve completed their tasks, they will be considered onboarded.
The employee’s view when onboarding
Get set up on Plane
Provide personal information (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to provide personal information, including date of birth and SSN. |
Provide address information (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to provide a residential address. By default, this address is designated as their primary work location. This establishes the tax jurisdiction for state and local taxes.
The address entered may trigger a need for additional tax setup and filing authorizations if it is associated with a state that hasn’t already been set up.
Note: A future feature will allow you to define office or other locations as the primary work location. If the employee has a work location other than their residence, let us know so we can set that up for you.
|
Add a payment method (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to add a bank account for direct deposit of payroll |
Get set up for payroll
Complete payroll tax withholdings forms (employee task)
| The employee will be asked to complete IRS Form W-4 and a state-specific tax withholding form if applicable. |
Provide electronic W-2 consent (employee task)
| The employee will be given a choice only receive their W-2 electronically. All employees will have access to electronic W-2s, but employees who don’t opt in will receive a paper copy. |
Archive onboarding tasks
The final step to onboarding is archiving completed tasks. Once this is done, the employee will no longer appear on the Hiring page.
If you need help adding an employee to Plane, let us know at support@plane.com.