This lesson walks you through logging in to Netchex and getting comfortable with your admin dashboard — the home base you’ll return to every day.

Logging in

Open a browser and go to netchex.com — it’s worth bookmarking so you always have quick access. In the top-right corner, click Login. On the login page, enter your username (the email address tied to your administrator account) and your password, then click Sign In to reach your admin dashboard.

If you’ve forgotten your password you can reset it here with Forgot Password?, and brand-new users can use New user? Complete account setup to get started.

Confirming your company

At the top-left of your dashboard you’ll see your company code and company name. This is the information our service team will ask for whenever you reach out for help, so it’s worth knowing where it lives. If you have access to more than one company, click the drop-down arrow to see every company code in your access and switch between them.

Linking your admin and employee accounts

Many administrators link their admin account to their employee account so they can reach both portals from one login. To do it, click your profile icon in the top-right, go to Account Management, and under Account Settings choose Link Accounts Now. You’ll need the username and password for each account you’re linking.

Your dashboard

Think of your dashboard as your company command center. It’s fully customizable, so yours won’t look exactly like anyone else’s.

To manage which widgets appear, click Settings — you’ll see the widgets currently on your dashboard. Click Add to add another, choose the widget you want, and then select the role it’s available to; depending on the widget, that’s employees, managers, or admins.

Back on the dashboard, beside the Settings button you have three viewing options — one, two, or three columns — so pick what works for you. You can also click and drag widgets to decide which column each one sits in.

The widgets you can add

There are several widgets to choose from. A few of the most-used:

• Company Directory — upload your company logo and host your company directory here; click contact a coworker to view an individual’s contact information.
• People — a breakdown of your employees by status (active, inactive, or terminated).
• Favorite Reports — quick-access links to your go-to reports out of Netchex’s 100+.
• Scheduler — if you use the scheduler feature, see pending shift requests and jump straight to the schedule builder.

This session explains how navigation works in Netchex and walks through the two ways to add an employee.

Finding your way around

All navigation starts with the left sidebar menu. What appears there depends on the upgrades your company has purchased — so if you see an option here that isn’t on your screen, don’t worry; if you’re interested in it, reach out to your account manager and they can help.

The core sections:

• People — your employee list, and where you add new employees and manage user permissions.
• Payroll — create payrolls and void paychecks; under Settings you can also adjust your payroll schedules.
• Time & Attendance — manage your employees’ time: the Time Off dashboard shows time off across your whole organization, it’s where you edit time cards, and you can reach the scheduling tool to build schedules with ease.
• Reports — everything from payroll reports (tax liability, employee paycheck details) to HR reports (new-hire, termination).
• Maintenance — company-level settings like earnings codes, deductions, and time-off plans.

A helpful rule of thumb: anything you set at the company level lives under Maintenance.

The People tab

The People tab holds your employee list and is also where you add new employees, copy an employee to other company codes in your organization, and manage user permissions. On the Employees page, the filter bar across the top lets you drill down three ways: by company code (if you have more than one), by searching for a specific employee, and by status. The status filter defaults to Active and on-leave, but you can show any status you like.

Adding a new hire — two ways

1. Add Employee — you enter everything. Choose Add Employee, then pick Brand New Hire (new to your organization) or Add employee to another company (so they can work across multiple company codes). Work through the demographic and workplace information, then either quick-add the employee with the data you’ve entered or move into full profile setup to add more.

2. Hires in Progress — the employee helps. Go to People → Hires in Progress and choose Add Employee to Onboarding. All you enter is the employee’s name and email, then Save and Notify. They land here in pending onboarding status and receive an email to complete their own demographic information (the same fields from the manual add screen). Once they save it, they move to pending activation and you get an email that they’re done. Click their name — notice their demographic info is already filled in because they entered it — and add the workplace information: access level, hire date, pay, and whether they’re a 1099 contractor or a W-2 employee. Finish by quick-adding or moving into full profile setup.

Once an employee is onboarded, their profile is where you view and update everything about them. We won’t cover every section — here are the highlights you’ll use most.

Opening a profile

From the employee list (People → Employees), click a name to open their profile. It has many options, grouped into tiles — Personal Info, Resume, Payroll, Employment Info, Time & Attendance, Scheduler, Benefits, and Other.

For example, under Personal Info → Demographics you can see and update basic details like address, phone number, and personal email. The Resume tile is where you document resume-type items (education, employment history, licenses & certifications, and skills).

Compensation

In the Payroll section, click Compensation to view and edit payroll details — payroll schedule and group, and the regular pay rate. Always include an effective date for a pay change.

Adding an additional rate lets you pay an employee a rate outside their regular pay rate. And for a salaried employee, you can enable Auto Pay, which pulls the same pay amount into payroll each time you process.

Deductions

The Deductions page lists the deductions an employee currently has set up, with each one’s active status shown on the right. Toggle a deduction on or off with the switch, edit one with the pencil, or add a new one with the Add button at the top-right.

Employment Info

The Employment Info tile is a menu of options — Employee Status, Job Details, I-9/Citizenship, Workplace Info, and more. The two you’ll reach for most often are Employee Status and Job Details.

Employee Status

Under Employee Status, you can change an employee’s status from a dropdown. Depending on the option you pick, more questions auto-populate so the right information gets captured for that change. This is also where you can include a terminated employee in a payroll, and choose whether to keep their current deductions for it.

Job Details

Under Job Details, you can change the employee’s position, job title, and tax classification, set whether they’re a 1099 contractor or a W-2 employee, and start the process of making an employee a manager.

Time off, files & history

Time & Attendance tile — assign a time-off plan by selecting Accrual/Attendance, then Add, and enter time-off requests for the employee at the bottom of the page.

Other → Employee Files — upload and store files that are relevant to that specific employee.

Employee Timeline — a full picture of the employee’s time with your company from their start date: compensation changes (when they happened and who made them), position changes, and even courses completed in the Netchex LMS. A holistic view of their history.

We encourage you to click around and get familiar with where to go for what — the profile is the hub for everything about an employee.

This session walks you through assigning access to your employees and managers.

The Manage Users page

From the admin dashboard, head to the left sidebar and scroll to People, then select Manage Users and Manage Users again. This is where you see the level of access each employee or manager has. You can filter by company code, division, business unit, or department, and select a specific access status — then Search. The page lets you see and edit access: Full Employee Access, Limited Employee Access, or Manager Access.

Account verification

Each employee’s personal email is listed, with a small colored dot beside it showing whether they’ve verified their account. Here’s the context: during onboarding the employee enters their info (pending onboarding), you complete the workplace info (pending activation), and after that they receive an email asking them to verify their account. The dot reflects that status — green means verified, yellow means pending, and red means not yet verified.

If a dot is red, resend the code: navigate to the right, check the box next to Send/Print Verification Code, and hit Submit. That emails the employee, and they have 96 hours to verify.

If an employee has no email on file, choosing Send/Print Verification Code and Submit opens a PDF form with instructions instead. They’ll then log in with a login ID and password — and the login ID is found in that PDF.

Manager Access

Before the manager tabs appear, the employee first has to be marked as a manager — you start that on their Job Details page (from the previous lesson).

Then go to People → Manage Users → Manage User Access, pick the company code and the employee name, and Search. Editing a manager brings up a gray screen with three tabs.

If an employee isn’t a manager, you can still come to this same place to edit what they can access as an employee — but if “Is this employee a manager?” isn’t toggled to Yes on the Job Details page of their profile, you’ll only see the Employee Options tab when you open this page (the Manager Access and Manager Options tabs won’t appear).

The Manager Access tab is where you give the manager specific permissions within your company (for example, the employee Add button and the employee list). It’s also where you set which employees the manager can reach — either specific departments or all departments, or specific employees. It has to be one or the other: all departments or all employees, not both.

The Manager Options tab controls the permissions a manager has within an employee’s profile — for example, whether they can view or modify demographics. It’s fully customizable, so you have full autonomy over what your managers can see and do.

The Employee Options tab controls what this person can do when logged in as an employee — in other words, what they can see and edit within their own profile. This is fully customizable too.

This lesson walks you through all the ways you can find help right inside Netchex. When you log in as an administrator, you have several options built into the platform.

The search bar

Start with the search bar at the top of the screen. Use it to look up employees or to enter keywords — as you type, it suggests items you may be searching for. For example, entering “deductions” returns a handful of related options to choose from.

Taylor, the AI chatbot

In the top-right corner you’ll see an icon of two conversation bubbles, one with a question mark inside. That’s Taylor, our AI chatbot. Taylor is connected directly into the Netchex system and knows how to use it, so you can ask any question you have. If Taylor can’t answer, it will create a service case so one of our representatives can reach out to you directly.

Live chat & phone support

To reach a person, select the question-mark icon labeled Help. The first two options are:

• Live Chat — connects you directly to a live representative at our headquarters. Great for a quick question. (A simple how-to like “How do I process payroll?” is actually a perfect fit for Taylor; reach for a live rep when something is more personal or niche.)
• Call — gives you the phone number for our support line. Best when something is more complicated and easier to talk through than to type out, or when it’s highly time-sensitive.

The Resource Center

At the bottom of your screen is a clipboard icon with a checkmark (sometimes with a small number next to it) — your Resource Center. It’s your go-to spot for everything happening at Netchex: product updates, release notes, feature walk-throughs, guided tours, and announcements (like holiday reminders), all delivered right to your dashboard. Netchex also uses a banner across your dashboard for urgent items, so nothing important gets missed.

The Knowledge Center (Netchex Experience Hub)

The Knowledge Center, also known as the Netchex Experience Hub, is your home for everyday support.

• Home — search by topic and get access to hundreds of knowledge articles written and published by Netchex representatives.
• Your cases — view the status of your cases (closed, open, or recently viewed) and search for a specific case.
• Documents — view Netchex’s W-9 as well as policies and guidelines for the system.

You can also Submit a Case directly to the Netchex team. Choose the case type that fits your inquiry — cases are best for non-urgent items (for anything urgent, a phone call or live chat is fastest):

• System Support — everyday, day-to-day support.
• Tax — a tax notice or a rate change.
• Administrative Access — update an existing admin, or add or remove one.
• Monthly Billing & Contract — anything about your bills or contracts.
• Banking — updates to your company bank account.
• Premium Services — a task you’d like Netchex to handle on your behalf.

If you’re ever unable to access the Experience Hub, reach out to our service team and they’ll get you sorted out.