Feature Spotlight: Employee Custom Fields

The next topic in the Community Learning Series focuses on custom fields and how to use them in various scenarios.

Think about what happens when a new employee joins your organization. Their information is immediately fed into the HR and payroll system, which is set up to collect certain types of employee information automatically. Here's how a typical employee profile looks in Zoho Payroll. The system automatically collects certain types of information, organized into Basic, Personal, and Payment categories.

Employee information

What are custom fields?

Employee custom fields can help collect any additional information about the employees that is not mandated in the payroll system. There are various instances where it's helpful to collect additional PII on top of the data collected automatically with Zoho Payroll (such as Aadhar card details, emergency contact info or blood group). Once the custom fields are created, the information they collect will be automatically available under Personal Information > Other Details in the employee’s profile.

How to create custom fields

Here's an example. Follow the steps below to create a new custom field called Aadhar card no.

In Zoho Payroll, go to Settings -> Preferences -> Employee Custom field
Click Create New
Create a new field called Aadhar card no
Choose the data type called Number
Provide Help Text for reference
(In this case, the number of digits of the Aadhar card number can be indicated in the help text like this: "1234-1234-1234")
Choose whether to encrypt the information
(This ensures only users with access can view this information)
Choose whether to make the field mandatory and whether it will be available within the ESS portal
Click Save

The status of the field created will be Active. The field can be made inactive, edited, or even deleted at any point.

Custom Field creation

Where to view this information

The data collected by this field will be available within the Employee module, under Personal information. A new section called Other information will be created where all the custom fields you create will appear automatically.

Custom fields

You can refer to our help docs for a detailed explanation of how to create and set up your custom fields.

Adding custom field information with a large employee count

Entering custom field data manually when there are hundreds of employees on your payroll can get hectic. This is where Zoho Payroll's import functionality helps, by letting you add details for all of your employees in one go.

Here's how to add the Aadhar card information for a payroll process with many employees:

In the employee import file, add a new column called Aadhar card number

Note: In the absence of an employee import file, the file can be exported by going to Employee Module -> Export data -> Employee Personal Details, choosing Active employees and the file type of .xls or .csv, and clicking on Export. In the exported file, add the new column.

Add the Aadhar card information of all the employees under the column you created

(Ensure that the employee data is mapped to the right employee ID in the import file)

Save the file and go to the employee module inside Zoho Payroll
Click Import Data and select Employee Personal Details
Upload the import file
Map the custom field called Aadhar card no to the column in the import file called Aadhar card number
Tick the checkbox below to save the preferences for the future
Click Next to import the custom field data

Under the employee module, choose any employee. The Aadhar card details will automatically appear under the employee's personal details.

Adding custom fields from Zoho People to Zoho Payroll

How do you add custom fields when the payroll system is integrated with the HR management tool Zoho People? It's pretty simple.

Before going ahead, ensure that the integration between Zoho Payroll and Zoho People is active. You can check by navigating to Integrations. The status of the Zoho People integration with Payroll should be Active.

Zoho People integration

Next, ensure that the custom field to be added to Zoho Payroll already exists in Zoho People.

To add the Aadhar card information of all the employees within Zoho People to Zoho Payroll:

Create a custom field called Aadhar card number inside Zoho Payroll using the steps in the first section of this post.
(Once that's complete, the data can be synced within the two platforms)
Go to Settings -> Integrations and click Zoho Apps
Choose View details in Zoho People
Select Edit field mapping. The custom field created will appear under the section Other information
Now map the right field name within Zoho People with the corresponding custom field
(In this example, Aadhar card number <----> Aadhar card no)
Click Save
Once complete, select the Instant sync option on top of the window

Employee Custom Field sync between Zoho People and Zoho Payroll

A notification that the sync is complete will appear within a few seconds, showing that the custom fields have been mapped from Zoho People to Zoho Payroll successfully. As in the previous case, this information can be viewed for all the employees within the employee module.

Hope you found this post useful! If you have any questions about custom fields and their uses, let us know in the comment section below, or email us at support@zohopayroll.com and we will get back to you.

Until next time!