Employee IDs

Employee IDs are an integral part of payroll and are used by HMRC to identify an employee for the whole tax year. In Pento, they are also used with our HRIS integrations where we sync data to Pento using the Employee ID.

New Starters

All new employees (including employees rejoining after leaving your company) should be added using a unique and previously unused Employee ID. Pento will not allow users to enter an ID that is duplicated on another record within Pento, this is because HMRC uses Employee IDs to identify an employee for the whole tax year. Using the same ID for more than one employee would cause the employee's records to be duplicated with HMRC and could result in higher tax rates being applied. 

HRIS Integrations and new starters

In addition to the above, if you are integrated with your HRIS on Pento, for some of the integrations i.e. Bamboo/HiBob, Pento syncs employee data using the Employee ID i.e. If there is an employee with the same ID on Pento and your HRIS, the employee data in Pento will be populated with the employee data from your HRIS. Once you have added a new employee to your HRIS, as long as the Employee ID is not present on any active or terminated record in Pento, a new employee record will be created. If you use an ID previously allocated to another employee, a new record will not be created, instead, the record with the duplicate ID will be overwritten. 

Changing Employee IDs

If you need to change Employee IDs, it is essential to notify us, this is because HMRC requires additional fields in the FPS submission reporting the previous and new IDs. This is to ensure duplicate records are not created for employees.

You will need to ensure the new IDs are unique and have not been previously used.

HRIS Integrations and changing Employee IDs

In addition to notifying us, if you are integrated with your HRIS on Pento, for some of the integrations i.e. Bamboo/HiBob, Pento syncs employee data using the Employee ID (i.e. If there is an employee with the same ID on Pento and your HRIS, the employee data in Pento will be populated with the employee data from your HRIS) therefore, if you are changing employee IDs, you will need to ensure you update the Employee IDs on Pento first. You should follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Settings from the left sidebar
2. You will see a section for Integrations
3. You'll then see your HRIS integration to click into 
4. Toggle on Pause syncing
   
   
5. Once toggled on, select Save & enable
6. Navigate to Employees from the left sidebar
7. Update the Employee ID on the relevant employees
   
   
8. Select Save changes
9. Update the Employee IDs in your HRIS
10. Once updated, navigate back to Integrations and toggle off Pause syncing

You will need to ensure the updated IDs are unique and have not previously been used.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use a previously used Employee ID if the employee has been terminated? 

Although HMRC guidance states that a terminated employee's ID can be reused (providing the employee was terminated in a previous tax year) Pento will not allow users to enter an ID that is duplicated on another record within Pento. If 3 years have elapsed from the end of the tax year the employee was terminated, you can reuse the Employee ID, however, you will need to delete the terminated employee's record from Pento first. To do this, you will need to contact our support team who can assist in removing the record. Please refer to HMRC's guidance on Keeping records.