Use this tool to bulk update your team members' employment or payroll data from a spreadsheet into Deputy.

• Before you begin
  • Access levels
  • Check the accuracy of your current team member data
  • Adding team members while updating payroll details
  • Tips for working with spreadsheets
  • What data fields can be imported?
• How do I bulk update team member payroll data?
  • Download your existing data
  • Open and update your spreadsheet
  • Upload your updated spreadsheet
• View import/update history

Before you begin

Access levels

Before you begin please ensure you have the access level permission of a System Administrator, Payroll Administrator or Payroll Manager (Payroll Manager Role coming soon). Note: Payroll Managers can only bulk import or update team members for the entities that they manage.

Check the accuracy of your current team member data

This article assumes that you already have basic team member data such as Name, Date of Birth, Email Address, Phone number, Home address, Locations, Pay rates etc accurately configured for your team in your Deputy account. If not, please read Bulk import or bulk update team member data.

Even if you do have this data already entered, it's always good practice before updating payroll information to review your team members' data to ensure it's all up to date, accurate and complete before you begin. You can easily download your current data if you need to review it in one spreadsheet format.

Note: This tool will only export the data of team members who are currently active in the Deputy system. No archived team member data will be exported. This is because bulk updates of archived team member information are not recommended. If you need to export archived team member data for recording or historical archiving purposes please instead use this Deputy export tool.

Can I add a new team member's payroll details while I'm updating payroll details for others?

No, this tool is only for updating the payroll details of team members already in your Deputy account.

If you need to add new team members to your account, please add them before using this payroll details bulk update tool. You have the following options to add a new team member:

• add a single team member individually
• add multiple new team members as a bulk import

Alternatively, use Deputy HR's new hire onboarding feature to have new team members enter their own payroll details into Deputy. 

Tips for working with spreadsheets

When bulk updating your team members' payroll information you will need a spreadsheet prepared with your data in it. The easiest way to prepare this is to download your existing Deputy data, update it then save it, before re-importing it back into Deputy.

Please be mindful of these tips when working with spreadsheets for bulk updating:

• For fields like Payroll ID or phone numbers, software like Excel may cut off any leading zeros, make sure to review the number format before saving the file. 
• Deputy ID field WARNING: This field is autogenerated by Deputy when a user is added to an account. For existing team members you are updating information for, you must never change this Deputy ID number or it could cause your account to malfunction. 
• Troubleshooting date format issues with Excel files for bulk import in Deputy

What data fields can be imported?

Please find below a list of fields and respective validations for each data set you can bulk import:

Note for Enterprise accounts only:

You may notice that the Employee template you download also features your Enterprise custom fields if any are present. These fields may be updated in the same way as updating data in the default fields in your file.

Note for bulk updating team member information:

You may use this tool to bulk import new information into your account such as tax file numbers and bank account details.

You may also use it to bulk update team members' information if it has changed from what was previously entered.

However, there are three exceptions to this bulk update functionality regarding the following data fields:

• team member mobile number
• team member email address

Both of these fields can not be bulk updated if the team member has already joined Deputy.

The reason for this is managers are not allowed to update a team member's mobile phone number or email address once the team member has already accepted their invitation to Deputy whether it's individually through their employee profile or in bulk action.

For security purposes, all Deputy users, regardless of access level must update their own phone or email address and cannot update the phone number or email address of other users who have already joined Deputy.

How do I bulk update team member payroll data?

Download your existing data to a file

1. On the People page, click Add People then select Bulk import and update.

2. Click on Update team members and then Download

3. It can take up to 5 minutes for your data to be prepared. Click Done.

4. You will receive a bell notification when the data is ready to download. Click on the notification and a file will download locally to your computer.

Open and edit your spreadsheet

1. Open your spreadsheet with your preferred spreadsheet editor software such as Excel. You will see your existing team members in the spreadsheet, one per row with columns of data.

2. If you scroll to the right you can see there will be empty columns of data related to payroll and these are the columns you will now need to update by typing or copying in data from another source.

For a complete list of all columns that need updating for payroll please refer to this table paying particular attention to:

• Mandatory - which fields are mandatory to enter information for the upload to be accepted
• Validation - which format the data must be presented in for the upload to be accepted

See also Tips for working with spreadsheets for bulk upload.

Once you are confident your spreadsheet contains all your data and is in the format required Save As a new file named such as "Team member with payroll data updated March 2025" to your computer. 

Upload your updated spreadsheet

1. On the People page, click Add People then select Bulk import and update.

2. Click on Update team members then select Continue to upload.

3. Click Upload file and select the spreadsheet file you edited and saved on your computer.

4. Map fields.

The spreadsheet will be imported into the tool and you will see the names of columns in your spreadsheet. Most of the columns will be automatically mapped to destination fields. Please ensure columns are correctly matched for a successful import.

To help you to correctly match columns, you will see a few data points for columns. To view column data, simply hover over column names.

Once you are happy that the columns match correctly, click Continue.

You may be asked to confirm your selection for specific fields that must be mapped to valid options such as Gender or Super Fund Type.

In the instance where there are cells in your spreadsheet with no incoming data for these fields, you will need to advise what to do with the destination values for these fields.

Once you have selected or confirmed Destination values for all cells with no data click Continue on the top right of the screen.

5. Validate your data

You will now see a count of how many of your records are Valid and ready to import and how many have errors in the Invalid tab.

Click on the Invalid tab to display all records with errors. You will see the fields coloured red if they have an error. You can use the Filter to review which fields are invalid and you have the choice to correct the errors in the original CSV file and upload or simply fix the errors now. If you have many data errors it may be faster to correct them in the original file and re load the file, but it is also possible to correct them in Deputy as shown below.

You find out more information about the expected format of the field with the error by hovering your mouse over the column names or you can click on the highlighted field to learn more about errors.

In the example below, the tax file number entered is invalid. Find out more about the expected validation of data formats in your spreadsheet by reviewing the Validation column in this table.

At this point, you can choose:

• to correct all red errors on the page by manually updating all fields to ensure there are no errors

• correct the errors in the original CSV file and start the import process again 
• import only valid records (the system will only count valid records and only allow valid records to be imported)

6. Submit your data.

Once you have corrected all errors in your data click on Submit and all valid data will be imported.

You will be able to see the progress of the import.

On successful import, you will get a success screen. Click Close.

If any records are rejected, you have the option to review those records, correct any fields and import those records again.

If you have no further records to import click on the cross at the top right of the pop up.

and then click Yes, Exit.

View import history

You can view a history of the previous import for team member details by going into the People page and clicking Add People then selecting Bulk import and update.

1. Click View import history

2. You can see a log of the imports that have occurred.

Note: clicking Download will export all data that was finally imported. This may not necessarily be data that was initially prepared in the original CSV. If any data was changed or errors were corrected during the import process they will be included in the file you download.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Data files downloaded in the manner contemplated by this article will contain personal information of your organisation's employees. It is important that you appropriately process, secure and purge these data files in accordance with your organisation's privacy policy and legal obligations.