Add each employee under Employees with a username, password and work settings — pay rate, commission, discount limits, login times, assigned locations and more. Clone an existing employee to copy a setup, email or export your staff list, and use switch-user PINs for fast switching on shared registers.

Every person who signs in to PHP Point Of Sale — clerks, managers, bookkeepers — gets their own employee account. The account carries their login credentials, contact details, and the work settings that shape what happens when they ring up a sale: their commission rate, their discount ceiling, the register and interface language they see, and the hours they are allowed to sign in.

You manage all of this in the Employees module in the left menu. What each employee is allowed to do is a separate topic covered in permissions and permission templates; this article covers the account itself.

Create an employee

1. Open Employees in the left menu.
2. Click + New Employee in the top right corner.
3. Fill in the profile. Four things are required: a First Name, an E-Mail, a Username with a Password, and at least one checked location under Locations.
4. Check the permission boxes or pick a Permission Templates entry in the Employee Permissions and Access section (see permissions and permission templates).
5. Click Save in the bottom right.

If the new hire should look like an existing employee, do not build the profile from scratch — see Clone an employee below.

Employee Basic Information fields

The Employee Basic Information section holds identity, contact and work-rule settings:

• First and Last Name — first name is required; a last name is optional but strongly recommended so two employees with the same first name are never confused.
• E-Mail — required. It is how you contact the employee and the address used when they need to recover a forgotten password.
• Phone Number — optional but recommended.
• Select Image — attach a photo to the profile. PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF and WebP files are accepted, and large images are resized automatically.
• Address fields — street, city, state, zip and country. This is also what prints on mailing labels (below).
• Comments — free-form notes such as availability. Only employees with permission to view employee records can see comments.
• Allowed To Login Start Time and Allowed To Login End Time — an optional daily sign-in window. Set both times and the employee can only log in between them; outside the window the login is refused. The window is evaluated in your location's timezone. Leave the fields empty for no restriction.
• Override Price Adjustments — off by default. When checked, this employee can ignore the minimum/maximum edit-price limits set on items and any maximum-discount ceiling when repricing or discounting during a sale. Whether they can change prices or give discounts at all is controlled by the Edit Sale Price and Give Discount permissions in the Sales module.
• Max discount percent — the largest discount percent this employee can give on a sale line. The register checks limits in this order: a max discount set on the item itself, then this per-employee value, then the store-wide max discount in Store Config. Employees with Override Price Adjustments checked are not limited. See discounts and price overrides.
• Commission Default Rate and Commission Percent calculation method (Selling Price or Profit) — the employee's personal commission rate. Leave the rate at 0 to fall back to the store-wide default. Full details in sales commissions.
• Hourly pay rate — the employee's wage, used by time clock reports to compute pay. This field only appears when the time clock is enabled in Store Config; see the time clock and time off.
• Hire date and Birthday — date pickers for the record.
• Employee number — an internal ID for matching payroll or HR records. Employee numbers must be unique.
• Language — the interface language this employee sees after signing in, chosen from the 17 available languages. Each employee can have a different language on the same store.
• Default Register — by default employees pick a register when they sign in. Choose a register here and the employee is signed straight into it every time — convenient, but use caution if the person floats between registers. See registers and cash management.
• Manager — which employee this person reports to. The manager chain is also how in-app permission requests find their approver.
• IP Addresses Employee Can Access From — an optional list of IP addresses or CIDR ranges. When filled in, the employee can only sign in from those addresses — for example, only from the store network.

Files and custom fields

• Files — attach up to five files to the profile: a job description, signed forms, certifications.
• Custom fields — the profile can carry up to ten employee custom fields (text, number, date, checkbox, file, image and more). Define them from the Employees list: click the ellipsis (...) in the top right and choose Custom Field Configuration. See custom fields.

Employee Login Info fields

• Username — required and unique; it is what the employee types to sign in.
• Password and repeat password — entered twice to catch typos. On an existing employee, leave the password blank to keep the current one.
• Force password change upon login — unchecked by default. Check it and the employee is prompted to set a new password of their own the next time they sign in — useful when you hand out a temporary password.
• Always require password when switching user — unchecked by default. Check it and this employee always has to type their full password when the register switches to them, even when fast user switching is enabled or they have a PIN. Recommended for accounts with sensitive access.
• Switch User PIN — an optional 4 to 6 digit PIN the employee can type instead of their password when switching users. The PIN must be all digits.
• Dark Mode — a per-employee appearance preference that switches their interface to darker colors.
• Inactive — check this to lock the account so the employee cannot sign in, even with the correct password. When you mark someone inactive, two more fields appear: Reason inactive and Termination date, so offboarding details stay on the record. The original admin account (the first employee) cannot be made inactive.

Switch users fast on a shared register

On a shared register, clerks rarely want to log all the way out between customers. The Switch User entry in the user menu (click your name in the top right) hands the register to another employee:

• With Enable fast user switching (password not required) turned on in Store Config, switching to an employee needs no credentials at all — unless that employee's profile has Always require password when switching user checked.
• If a password would be required, an employee with a Switch User PIN can type the 4–6 digit PIN instead of the full password.
• An employee with Always require password when switching user checked always types their full password, PIN or not.

Deeper sign-in security — two-factor authentication, single sign-on, admin password recovery — is covered in secure sign-in, 2FA and SSO.

Let employees maintain their own profile

Grant the Edit profile action (in the Employees permission group) and an employee can update their own contact details, username, password, language and switch-user PIN from their profile — no manager needed. The profile is also where an employee sets up two-factor authentication for their own account.

Clone an employee

When several employees share the same setup, clone instead of retyping:

1. Open Employees, find the employee to copy, and in the Actions column click the ellipsis (...).
2. Choose Clone Employee and confirm with OK.
3. A pre-filled new-employee form opens. The clone copies the city, state, zip and country, the allowed login start/end times, the price adjustment, discount and commission settings, the hire date, the login-info checkboxes, and the entire Employee Permissions and Access section.
4. Identity fields are left blank on purpose — name, email, phone, username, password, employee number, birthday and image are never copied. Fill them in and click Save.

Email employees

1. Open Employees and check the box on one or more employee rows.
2. Click E-Mail above the list.
3. Your device's email application opens with the selected employees' addresses already filled in, ready to compose.

For messaging inside the app instead, see email, SMS and notifications.

Export the employee list to Excel

1. Open Employees. If you want to export a subset, run a search first — the export respects the current search.
2. Click the ellipsis (...) in the top right and choose Excel Export. Exporting requires the Excel Export permission in the Employees group.
3. A spreadsheet downloads with one row per employee: username, first name, last name, e-mail, phone number, address fields, comments, the internal person ID, and whether the account is inactive.

The file comes out as XLSX or CSV depending on the spreadsheet format chosen in Store Config; see importing your data for the format setting and for imports in general.

Print mailing labels

1. Open Employees and check the box on one or more employee rows.
2. Click Mailing Labels above the list.
3. The labels open in a new tab with each employee's name and address, ready to print or download.

Labels are generated as PDF by default; the Mailing Labels Format setting in Store Config can switch them to Excel instead. If a label comes out incomplete, edit the employee and fill in the missing address fields.

Deactivate, delete, restore and purge

• Deactivate — check Inactive on the profile to lock the account while keeping everything else untouched. This is the right call for seasonal staff and for offboarding, since you can record a reason and termination date.
• Delete — on the Employees list, check the employee's row and click Delete above the list, then confirm with OK. Deleting is a soft delete: the record is hidden but kept, and the employee's sales history stays intact. You cannot delete your own account, and the default admin user cannot be deleted.
• Restore — click the ellipsis (...) in the top right and choose Manage Deleted Employees. Check the rows to bring back, click Undelete, then Done.
• Purge — the ellipsis (...) menu also has Cleanup old employees. This permanently removes all deleted employees from the restorable list in one step and frees their usernames for reuse. It cannot be undone, and you cannot pick individual records — every deleted employee is cleaned up together.

Who can manage employee accounts

Four action permissions in the Employees group of permissions and templates decide who can do what in this module:

• Search employees — opens the Employees list at all, including searching it and viewing the deleted-employees list.
• Add, Update — create and edit employee profiles, including cloning an employee.
• Delete — delete employees, and undelete them from Manage Deleted Employees.
• Assign all locations — controls how far an editor's reach extends when checking Locations on a profile: without it, they can only grant locations they themselves are assigned to; with it, they can grant access to any location in the store.

Separately, the Reports-module Employees permission gates the Employees report family — the graphical, summary and detailed sales-by-employee reports.

Where employee data shows up elsewhere

• The time clock pairs punches with the hourly pay rate on the profile.
• Commissions start from the commission rate on the profile.
• The Employees report family in reports breaks sales down by employee.
• Which locations an employee can work in is set in the Locations section of their profile — at least one is required. See locations and registers.

Common questions

Why can't a new employee log in? Check four things in order: the username and password are correct; the account is not marked Inactive; the current time falls inside the Allowed To Login Start/End Time window if one is set; and, if IP Addresses Employee Can Access From is filled in, they are connecting from an allowed address.

Why doesn't the Hourly pay rate field appear on the employee form? It only shows when the time clock is enabled. Turn on Enable Time Clock in Store Config and the field appears; see the time clock and time off.

Can an employee change their own password? Yes, if they have the Edit profile permission in the Employees group. You can also check Force password change upon login to make them replace a temporary password on their next sign-in.

I deleted an employee by mistake — can I get them back? Yes, as long as you have not run Cleanup old employees. Open Employees, click the ellipsis (...), choose Manage Deleted Employees, check the employee and click Undelete.

Why can't I reuse a former employee's username or employee number? Usernames and employee numbers must be unique, and a soft-deleted employee still holds theirs. Run Cleanup old employees to permanently purge deleted employees and free their usernames — but be sure first, because cleanup cannot be undone.

What is the difference between marking an employee Inactive and deleting them? Inactive keeps the record fully visible while blocking sign-in — best while someone is on leave or recently offboarded. Delete hides the record from the list entirely. Both keep the sales history; neither erases data until you run cleanup.

Does each employee see the software in their own language? Yes. The Language dropdown on the profile controls that employee's interface language independently of everyone else's, with 17 languages to choose from.

Why is the register already chosen when an employee signs in? Their profile has a Default Register set. Clear it and they will be asked to pick a register at sign-in again.