HR settings are one page, System → HR settings, with a tab for each area (they need Manage HR; a link can open a tab directly, for example ?tab=time-off). This page also explains the visibility model — how HR keeps sensitive data private.
HR settings#
System → HR settings has these tabs:
- General — self-service editing on/off and whether it requires approval, probation period, Let people see their own compensation ("total rewards"), the Expiry notice period, and the recruiting sub-toggle.
- Time off — the time-off types and how they accrue.
- Time-off types — the kinds of leave (vacation, sick, personal…), each with a color and whether it's paid and counts against balance. Types in use are deactivated rather than deleted.
- Accrual policies — how each type accrues: the method, annual days, carryover limits, waiting periods, and reset timing. Assign policies to people and run accruals on demand.
- Cost to the business — what an employee costs on top of their pay, used to turn HR pay into a cost rate for anyone without one on Work & rates: employer payroll tax (default 7.65%), working hours per year (default 2,080), and benefits and other costs per employee per year (default none). Contractors get none of these unless their own cost details add something. How it's used →
- Pay runs — once pay runs are available (below).
- Custom fields — add your own fields to employee profiles, in the section you choose, with a type, help text, and a Sensitive switch for fields only people who manage HR should see. Fields with answers are deactivated rather than deleted.
Pay runs#
Once pay runs are available, System → HR settings has a Pay runs tab (its old address, /system/hr-settings/pay-runs, takes you there). What's earned from agreements, projects and deals is set in Finance settings → Pay rules; the tab links there. People who manage HR can look at it; changing it needs Approve pay runs. The tab shows Started or Not started yet, and has these sections:
- Pay schedules and People on another schedule — how often people are paid, and who isn't on the default schedule.
- Paydays and holidays — how many days before the payday a draft appears, whether a weekend or holiday payday moves to the business day before or after, and whether your organization's holidays and US bank holidays are skipped.
- Share schedules — named schedules for which payday(s) pay a month's share (the month after, the same month after the client pays or on schedule, two paydays you choose, each payday for the days just worked, or each payday from what the client has paid), with a default and a schedule per kind of share, person or team if you need one.
- Hours — Approved hours only or Any logged hours, and whether a share with no time logged is only a warning or is held automatically.
- Approvals — whether the person who marks a run ready can also approve it, whether you can approve a run that includes your own pay, and an optional second approver (always, or over an amount).
- Refunds after payment — whether a statement can go below $0, and the most recovered in one run.
- When someone leaves, Part periods (salary) and Reimbursements — what happens to earned shares, how part-period salary is split, and whether approved expense claims are paid in pay runs.
- Payroll provider file, Bills and Statements by email — who's in the provider file, where contractor bills go (QuickBooks Online, Xero or a QuickBooks Desktop file) and when, and who gets statements by email.
- Start pay runs — records what was already paid so the first run doesn't pay it twice.
The option Let people see their own compensation under General also decides whether people see their own pay-run statements. Without it, only people who can see pay runs do.
The visibility model#
HR holds your most sensitive data, and its access model is deliberately strict — worth understanding clearly:
- No admin override. There's no permission that reveals everyone's HR data wholesale. Access to a person's profile comes from one of three things: the Access HR permission, being that person (your own profile), or being their manager.
- Compensation needs its own View compensation permission — or it can be your own pay, if Let people see their own compensation is on. You never see anyone else's pay without the permission.
- My pay — the same option shows each person the pay rules that pay them (a share of a client's fee, an hourly rate, a commission) under My pay on their own page. It never shows anyone else's pay.
- Cases are HR-management only, and — importantly — the person a case is about never sees their own cases.
- Surveys are structurally anonymous, and 1:1 private notes are never visible to the other participant. These protections are built into the data model, not just enforced by policy.
- Self-service lets people propose changes to their own personal data (never employment or compensation) — see Change requests.
This layered model means HR can do its job, managers can support their teams, and everyone can manage their own information — without anyone seeing more than they should.
The single most important thing to know about HR access: it is relationship- and permission-based, with no blanket admin bypass. Grant the HR permissions deliberately, and the module keeps sensitive data appropriately private by default.