Employee direct deposit

This guide covers: adding a bank from the admin side, adding a bank from the employee portal, splitting deposits across two accounts, and removing a bank.

Employees can have one or more bank accounts on file. By default each paycheck goes entirely to the primary account; with two or more accounts, employees (or admins) can split the deposit by percentage or fixed amount. Whether the employee can self-serve depends on the client's bank-linking mode — self-service lets the employee add and remove their own accounts; read-only locks the employee out and requires the admin to manage them.

Add a bank from the admin side

What it does: Lets an accountant or SMB user add a bank account on behalf of an employee.

Where: Dashboard → Clients → [client] → Employees → [employee] (/clients/{clientId}/employees/{employeeId}) → Direct Deposit card → + Add Bank Account.

Steps:

1. Open the employee detail page.
2. Scroll to the Direct Deposit card (W-2 employees only — contractors don't have direct-deposit fields here).
3. Click + Add Bank Account.
4. Fill in Bank Name, Account Type (checking / savings), Routing Number (9 digits), and Account Number.
5. Click Save.
6. The new account appears in Linked Bank Accounts with the bank name, account type, and a primary star if it's the first one.

Who: Accountant + SUPPORT (dashboard); SMB user (SMB portal employee detail).

Notes: Admin-side adds skip the employee-facing self-service guards. The bank record is encrypted at rest; only the last 4 digits are visible after save. The employee receives a notification that a new account was added.

Add a bank from the employee portal

What it does: Lets the employee add their own bank account through the employee portal.

Where: Employee portal → Direct Deposit (/employee-portal/direct-deposit) → Add Bank Account button.

Steps:

1. Sign in to the employee portal.
2. Open Direct Deposit.
3. If the client has the bank-linking mode set to self_service, the Add Bank Account button appears at the top right. Click it.
4. Fill in Bank Name, Account Type (checking / savings — radio buttons), Routing Number (9 digits), and Account Number (4–17 digits). The form blocks submit until both routing and account numbers pass length checks.
5. Click Save Bank Account.
6. The new account shows under the list with bank name, account type, ****last4 for both account and routing numbers, and the percentage / fixed-amount split if one is set.

Who: Employee.

Notes: If the page shows a blue banner that reads "Managed by Your Payroll Administrator — Your direct deposit accounts are managed by your payroll administrator…", the client is in read_only mode — the employee can't add, change, or remove accounts and has to contact the admin. Changes take effect on the next scheduled pay period, not the current one.

Split across two accounts

What it does: Routes a percentage or fixed dollar amount of each paycheck to a second account (e.g. part to savings).

Where: Employee portal → Direct Deposit → "Split your paycheck" card (visible once two or more accounts are linked).

Steps:

1. With two or more accounts linked, scroll past the account cards to the Split your paycheck card.
2. The editor lists each account with two fields — Percentage or Fixed Amount.
3. Set the rule per account: a percentage (e.g. 20% to savings, 80% to checking) or a fixed amount (e.g. $200 to savings, remainder to checking).
4. Save the split. The portal validates that percentages don't exceed 100% and that fixed amounts plus the remainder make sense.

Who: Employee (self-service mode). Admins set the split from the dashboard employee detail page as part of normal bank management.

Notes: The primary account is the "remainder" account — anything not allocated to a fixed-amount or percentage split lands there. Splits only run when there's at least one non-primary account; a single-account employee gets 100% to the primary.

Set primary

What it does: Tells the payroll engine which account receives the remainder of the paycheck (after any splits).

Where: Employee portal → Direct Deposit → bank card → three-dot menu → Set as Primary. From the admin side: employee detail page → bank account card → primary-star button.

Steps:

1. Locate the account you want as primary.
2. Click the three-dot menu (employee portal) or the primary toggle (admin).
3. The chosen account gets a Primary chip and the previous primary loses it.

Notes: Removing the only account on file leaves the employee with no direct-deposit destination — payroll will fall back to paper check for them until a new account is added.

Remove a bank

What it does: Deletes a bank account from the employee's record.

Where: Employee portal → Direct Deposit → bank card → three-dot menu → Remove Account. Admin side: employee detail page → bank account row → trash icon.

Steps:

1. Click the three-dot menu (or trash icon).
2. Confirm in the browser prompt: "Are you sure you want to remove this bank account? This cannot be undone."
3. The account is removed and any split rules referencing it are cleared.

Notes: Removal is hard-delete on the bank record but the audit log entry (who, when, last 4 digits) is retained. Active employees with no remaining bank account are flipped to paper-check for their next payroll run.

Why some employees can't self-serve

The client's bank-linking mode determines what the employee sees on /employee-portal/direct-deposit:

• self_service — full UI: Add, Set Primary, Remove, Split.
• read_only — view-only with a banner: "Managed by Your Payroll Administrator — contact them to add, change, or remove bank accounts."

The mode is set by the accountant per client and is typically self_service for tech-savvy workforces and read_only for clients who want tighter control over bank-on-file changes (e.g. to require ID verification before any update).

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Related: Company bank account setup · How ACH timing works · Direct deposit return codes · Payment troubleshooting.