Connect payroll and HR (ADP, Paychex, BambooHR and others)
Linking the payroll or HR system you already use, what happens to your login, and what the connection does — and doesn't do.
Which systems
Open More → Marketplace and choose the Payroll & HR category. There's a card for ADP, Paychex, BambooHR, Rippling, Paylocity, TriNet, TriNet HR (Zenefits), Justworks and Workday, and a Payroll & HR card (Connect 40+ other payroll and HR systems) for anything not listed. Directors, assistant directors and admins can connect one.
The Rippling card is a payroll link, not a way for staff to sign in — see Connect Rippling. Background checks sits in the same category but is a separate thing.
How connecting works
When you tap Connect, RoundUp prepares a one-time link and opens a secure sign-in window inside the app, run by RoundUp's payroll-connection partner. You choose your provider there and sign in with your payroll login. Your provider then hands back a connection for your center, which RoundUp stores on its servers.
Your username and password are typed into that window, not into RoundUp, and RoundUp never sees or stores them. What it keeps is the connection itself, which you can remove at any time.
Connect yours
- Pick your provider Tap Connect on your provider's card. If it isn't listed, use the Payroll & HR card, which opens the full list.
- Wait for the window Connect Payroll opens with Preparing the connection…, then the sign-in window. A provider's own card opens straight on that provider.
- Sign in Use the login you run your center's payroll with, and follow your provider's prompts.
- Let it finish You'll see Finishing up… and then Syncing your staff… before the app returns you to the Marketplace. The card reads Syncing… for a while, then Connected.
The Payroll & HR screen
Once a payroll system is linked, Manage on its card opens Payroll & HR. Directors, assistant directors and admins can open it; nobody else can.
- Connection — which system you're linked to, and the company name it gave back. Re-pull from payroll asks your provider to fetch everything again now. Some systems read live and have nothing to re-pull, and some accounts aren't on a plan that allows it; either way the screen tells you which happened rather than looking broken.
- Payroll employees — your active employees as your payroll system holds them, with job title, email and status. This is your payroll roster, not your RoundUp Staff screen.
- Time off — time off booked in your payroll system, with the dates, the amount and whether it's approved. Time off requested in RoundUp stays in RoundUp; the two aren't connected.
- Pay statements — completed payroll runs with their period and net pay, for the payroll systems that report them. Providers that don't simply don't show the section.
The first pull runs in the background after you connect, so if you've only just linked it, give it a few minutes and tap Refresh.
Matching staff
Match staff is the one thing on the screen that changes your RoundUp records. It matches by email address, within your center only, and where a payroll employee and a staff member share an address it links them and copies across what payroll owns:
- the employment start date,
- a phone number, if that staff record doesn't already have one,
- and whether someone has left — an employee your payroll system reports as terminated becomes a former staff member here, with their end date.
Preview changes shows exactly what would happen and writes nothing. Match now does it. Either way you get the same counts: how many are in payroll, how many are on your staff list, how many matched, and how many staff records changed.
Nobody is created or invited. A payroll employee with no RoundUp account is counted, not added — invite them from the Staff screen if they need one. See Adding and removing staff.
This runs when you ask it to. There's no nightly job for centers linked this way, so if payroll is your system of record for leavers, run it when you make changes there.
What it doesn't do
RoundUp reads from your payroll system. It doesn't write back, and it doesn't run payroll, move payroll money or file payroll taxes. Your time clock's hours are not sent over — see Time clock for where those live.
It also doesn't change your schedules or ratios: those are built from your RoundUp classrooms and staff, whatever your payroll system says. The Workers' Comp tab on the Staff screen, if your plan includes it, is separate as well — claims there are kept in RoundUp and don't come from payroll.
One payroll link per center
Your center has one payroll link. Connecting a different provider replaces the one you have, and the other cards say so: Your payroll is currently linked through a different system. Connecting Paychex will replace that link. The Payroll & HR card reads Connected whenever any payroll system is linked.
Manage on a connected card is safe: it opens Payroll & HR and changes nothing. Replacing your link takes a deliberate Connect on another provider's card, which says so before you start.
Disconnecting
Tap Disconnect on the connected card and confirm. RoundUp deletes the stored connection for your center and asks its partner to delete theirs. You can connect again at any time. If you've stopped using that payroll system, disconnect rather than leaving an unused link in place.
Troubleshooting
The card says Unavailable, with no Connect button
Payroll linking isn't switched on for your center yet, so there's nothing to connect to. Email support with your center name and the provider you use.
Connect Payroll shows an error instead of a sign-in window
Tap Try again on the error. If it keeps happening, email support and say which provider you were connecting.
The card says Reconnect needed
Your provider wants you to sign in again — often after a password change or a change to that login's access. Tap Reconnect.
It still says Syncing…
The first sync runs in the background after the window closes. Come back later and tap Refresh.
I closed the window by mistake
Nothing was saved. Tap Connect again.
More: All director guides