The Spendesk HR integration enables you to link Spendesk to an HR tool (such as Personio, HiBob, Workday, BambooHR, PayFit, Lucca, Deel, and more) to manage users in Spendesk automatically. This includes:

Creating members in Spendesk as they appear in the HR tool.
Updating user details to synchronize things like email address, name, bank account details and reporting manager.
Archiving members that are no longer 'active' employees in the HR tool.

What are the requirements?

Certain requirements are needed to be able to set up the integration:

This feature is available for Scale and Premium plans users.
You need to be an Account Owner or Administrator in Spendesk to manage the integration.
You will need Admin access to your HR tool (necessary to get API Keys for the connection).
You need to be using a professional / work email for employees in your HR tool (as this is how we match to Spendesk)

How can it be set up?

🚨 If you have multiple Spendesk entities you’ll need to follow these steps for each entity.

In order to set up the native integration, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Connection

To connect Spendesk with your HR tool and to authorize access to your platform, you have to:

a) Go to Settings> Integrations.

b) Select your HR tool from the options and click on Connect.

c) Follow the instructions to connect and authenticate the integration. This will require you to:

Review the data that Spendesk will have access to.
Provide authentication details (API key).
Confirm the connection.

➡️ Some HR tools might take their own specific steps:

HR Tool	To do
Personio	Get your subdomain from your Personio URL with the format https://subdomain.personio.de. As a Personio Administrator, open the marketplace page in personio and click on Connect at the top right. Select the top option Generate new API credential and confirm Copy the generated Client ID and Client Secret in the Spendesk connection dialog when prompted.
BambooHR	Get your subdomain from your BambooHR URL with the format https://subdomain.bamboohr.com. As a BambooHR Administrator, create and retrieve an API key from BambooHR as per this guide.
HiBob	First, create a service user in HiBob, or in Settings > Integrations and use the search to find Service Users (see the HiBob documentation here for more details). Select New Service User and give them a unique name (e.g. Spendesk Integration). You’ll be given an ID and token, please note these down in a secure place. Create a new Permission Group via Settings > Account > Permission Groups. Name the Group (e.g. Spendesk Integration), and set the permissions in the "People’s Data" tab, the exact requirements will be shown in your connection flow dialog. Please follow the guidance there. Add the service user you created previously to the new Permission Group. Return to Spendesk and complete the connection flow.
Workday	As an Admin, log into Workday and use the search bar to search for View API Clients. Make a note of the `Workday REST API Endpoint`. Next, search for Create Integration System User and give them a username and password. You must then set up the necessary permissions, we recommend following this comprehensive guide.
Deel	Verify your account is an Organization Admin via the Organization Settings screen or set it up as per this guide.
PayFit	If you are an Administrator on Payfit, please follow the connection flow. You'll be able to authorize the connection using your account.
Lucca HR	Identify your Lucca domain from your URL, in this case ‘example’: `https://example.ilucca.net`. As an Administrator, log into Lucca and press the cog button on the top right. Locate the "API Keys" option under the "Authentication, SSO and API" section. If this isn’t visible, you don’t have the correct admin user- Click on the "Generate API Key" button to create an API key and give it a name (e.g. Spendesk Integration)- Click on Generate API Key and copy your new API key value Go back to Spendesk and complete the connection flow, providing the domain and the API key when asked.

For any other HR tool, please find a list of useful information here, and if you have any questions or issues, don't hesitate to get in touch with our support team.

If the connection was successful, you’ll be returned to the integrations screen in Spendesk and shown the dialog below while we perform an initial sync and get the data needed to allow you configure the integration further. It will not make any changes to Spendesk at this time.

Once it is complete, the integration will be marked as ‘Pending actions’. It is now connected to your HR tool, but won’t start managing users until it is fully configured.

2. Configuration:

Now that the integration is connected to your Spendesk account, you need to complete the configuration, and it'll function according to your specifications.

From Settings> Integrations & API> Your HR tool card, you will see the status 'Awaiting actions'.

Select employees:

⚠️ One of the most important aspects to consider while configuring your integration is to control which members it should handle in the HR system.

You can select All employees or Custom filter to define additional filter rules on the data Spendesk can see.

Typically, this will likely be based on the employee’s work location. For example, if they’re based in the UK, you might want to configure the integration in your UK Spendesk entity to include this user. For your other Spendesk entities, you’d want to exclude them.

Each dropdown will contain a list of filter values taken from your HR data. Select those matching the users you want to be mapped to this Spendesk entity.

➡ Please note! In some rare cases, when the filters are not enough to capture specific exceptions, for example, users that need to exist in multiple entities, manual creation will still be required.

Next, you can also decide whether you want Spendesk to automatically remove inactive employees. For example if an employee reaches their termination date and becomes 'inactive' in your HR data, we can remove them from the system automatically. This is disabled by default but can be enabled here.

Once you are happy with your configuration, press the button "Save & apply" and you’ll be presented with a preview of your configuration to be confirmed.

This will highlight any users specifically impacted by the integration, such as existing users now managed, new invites and any removed / archived.

Once confirmed, the integration will change to ‘Connected’.

Please be aware that the integration may take some time to initialize the first time, depending on the number of employees that need to be processed.

Reporting manager

Reporting manager information will be synchronised automatically if you select 'all employees' as the filter.

If you select 'custom filter', then you must also select the 'Automatically include managers' option:

Once this is selected, applicable managers will be invited and all employees' reporting manager information will be updated in Spendesk.

3. Disconnecting:

If you want the integration to stop processing users, just press the Disconnect button. This will simply prevent the integration from making any further creates/updates in users, but it will not have any effect on the users already existing in Spendesk.

➡️ To resume, you will need to complete all the steps again.

How can I see the integration status?

Once the integration is active, you'll notice some changes across the following screens to help you understand how the integration is managing your members.

Integration Card

On Settings > Integrations you'll see your HR integration status. As long as it shows as 'Connected', then it is actively trying to synchronise members.

If there are any issues in the connection between Spendesk and your HR tool, the status of this card will change to reflect the error.

Active Members

On the Settings > Members page you'll now see notices to inform you that members are being actively managed:

Some fields for managed users will also be disabled and can only be modified by the integration. This is to prevent users updating fields that will be overwritten by the integration, as we view the HR tool data as the source of truth.

Additionally, a new 'HR Status' column on the members page will show which users are managed and which are not:

The green tick represents a user being actively managed by the integration
An orange warning shows a user that was previously managed by the integration, but due to a change in the settings is now no longer managed (e.g. the user filter was changed and they no longer match)
A blank entry shows a user being managed manually, the integration will not be updating these

Invited members

Any members invited by the integration will be shown on the 'invited' tab as normal and they will receive and invite to onboard themselves. Once they've done this, they'll appear on the 'active' tab.

Archived members

Members that have been removed due to being 'inactive' employees in the HR tool can be found in the 'archived' tab:

What if my tool isn't available?

If you cannot see your HR tool displayed on Settings > Integrations, either get in touch with your customer service contact or submit a request via the in-product form on the integrations page:

We're actively adding more tools and keen to work with you to cater to your requirements.

NetSuite native integration: connect your Spendesk account to NetSuite 🚀