Employee Transfers
This guide explains how employee transfers work in Paylocity and how they appear when consuming Paylocity APIs. It outlines how transferred employees are represented across multiple Company IDs, how to identify the active employee record, and best practices for handling transferred employees in third-party systems.
Employee Transfers in Payroll/HR
In Paylocity Payroll & HR, an employer can transfer an employee from one Company ID (Payroll ID) to another as long as both companies belong to the same EIN / Company Set.
The Copy and Transfer process allows employers to move an active employee from one company to another within the same organization. This most commonly occurs when an employee moves from one company location to another.
When an employee is transferred:
- The employee’s record in the source company is updated to a status of XT – Transferred.
- The employee record is copied to the target company and created as A – Active.
- The employee retains the same Employee ID, but now exists under a different Company ID.
- Only the current year’s pay history is transferred to the new company.
As a result, within a company set, a single employee may have multiple records across different Company IDs. In a typical transfer scenario:
- One (or more) records will have a status of XT – Transferred (the previous company)
- One record will have a status of A – Active (the current company)
Considerations for Third-Party Systems
Many third-party systems, such as Benefits Administration or Retirement platforms, do not support multiple employee records for the same person. When integrating with Paylocity APIs, we recommend evaluating the Employee Status when processing employee updates.
If an employee record has a status of XT – Transferred, the record represents a historical employment record, and updates to it can generally be ignored. The employee will typically have another record in a different Company ID with a status of A – Active, which represents the employee’s current employment record.
Identifying Employees Across Companies
When consuming employee data from Paylocity:
- The SSN is the unique identifier for an individual.
- Employee ID + Company ID together represent a unique employment record.
Because employee transfers create a new record under a different Company ID, integrations should be designed to handle employees appearing in multiple companies within the same company set.
Integration Considerations
Employee transfers require a high level of configuration alignment between the source and target companies. Differences in payroll configuration (such as earnings, deductions, or job codes) can sometimes create challenges during the transfer process.
After a transfer occurs, employers should ensure the employee’s information is properly synchronized with any connected third-party systems. In some cases, this may require updating fields such as Payroll Location, Company Identifier, or similar attributes in the external system to align with the employee’s new Paylocity Company ID.
Updated 9 days ago