Account Cloning Services

Purpose: BambooHR provides an account cloning service to help you create multiple accounts from a single BambooHR account. This is useful for clients managing multiple locations or companies. As your account grows and teams change, you may need an additional account. Our cloning service creates an identical duplicate, allowing you to easily remove unnecessary data and employees without reconfiguring settings.

This guide will help you understand the benefits and challenges of account cloning, avoid costly mistakes, and explore your options. We will cover the pros and cons, key considerations, and an overview of the cloning process.

Account cloning requests are not included in monthly subscription pricing and incur additional fees. Speak to our professional services specialists to learn more. 

Table of Contents

Timeline

The process of cloning an account is fairly straightforward. During this process, your account is copied on a specific date that you select. Any clones created will be an identical copy of your account as it was on the cloning start date. Once the clones are generated, unneeded information can be removed from the accounts, leaving you with multiple unique accounts. 

The process of cloning an account takes three to five business days from start to finish. The cloning start date you indicate will be the day the process starts. 

Accounts with Payroll require additional time beyond the three to five days depending on the needs of your company. A payroll specialist will work with you to ensure that you are able to run payroll with as little disruption as possible. Please note that payroll cannot be configured until the clones are completed. Once your clones are finished the cloned account will either need to participate in a payroll implementation or an EIN transfer. 

Preparation

With account cloning there are three phases, preparing for the clone, the actual cloning process, and any cleaning of the clones. Your assigned representative will assist you through the whole process. 

The first phase is preparing for your cloning service to start. To start the process we require your Account Owner's permission. Please let us know as soon as possible if your Account Owner is no longer available so that we can work with our Support team to get this updated. We cannot begin processing the request until the Account Owner is confirmed. 

You will also need to determine when you would like your clones to be ready. The process takes between three to five business days to complete and your admin users will need time after to prepare and clean the cloned accounts. Please make sure to let us know if you have set deadlines so that we can work with you to fulfill the request. If you need Payroll for any of the cloned accounts, please allow for an additional two weeks for EIN transfers or four weeks for implementation. 

The service will start on the date that you selected. You may wish to close any opened job openings and remove self-service access from your employees beforehand. This prevents changes from being made during the cloning process. Any changes that occur on or after your cloning process has begun will not transfer to your cloned accounts. These changes will need to be manually made in the cloned accounts by a Full Admin user once the service is finished. 

Please note that any changes you make to your account after cloning begins will not be copied to the clones. The start date you choose is the deadline for transferring data between accounts.

A notification will be sent out when the copying of the master account is completed. At that time, you may reinstate access and reopen jobs. 

After the clones are created, a Full Admin user will need to review the accounts and perform any cleaning needed. Our team is able to assist in the bulk removal of employee profiles. The time to clean an account varies from company to company. Please make sure that you leave yourself enough time after cloning to meet any deadlines that you have. Let your representative know if you need to make any changes to the timing as soon as possible. 

Other considerations

Employee access during the process

It is not required that you restrict employee access to your BambooHR account during the cloning process. It is ultimately up to your team to decide if access will be removed for the duration of the process. The original account will capture changes made during the cloning. However depending on the timing of the change made, any clones produced may not reflect the updated data. 

Any changes to the account after the cloning has begun will need to be manually moved to any clones by a Full Admin user with access to the accounts. To ensure the most accurate copy, it is recommended that employee self-service access be removed during cloning. 

Job openings

It is not required to close job openings before beginning the cloning process. Please keep in mind that users who apply during the cloning process may not be reflected in the cloned accounts. 

If you would like to ensure that all candidates who apply are transferred to the clones it is recommended that job openings be moved to an inactive status for the duration of cloning. 

SSO/SAML login accounts

If your current account is using a single sign-on or SAML client, please note that any clones created will be defaulted to a username/password log in. SSO and SAML connections will need to be installed on any created clones. 

Data that cannot be removed

There is some historical data included in your BambooHR account that cannot be removed from any created clones. This data is recorded as part of your Audit Trail and Access Level History reports. These features of BambooHR are designed to help you track changes in your account and prevent costly errors from snowballing. The audit histories are transferred to any cloned accounts. 

Please note that deleting employee records will remove some but not all of the data in these historical audit records. If you need an account totally devoid of employee information, it is recommended that you create a new BambooHR account to prevent historical audit data from being copied. 

Account Owners

When the account is copied, any clones produced will start with the account owner listed at the time of the copy. Once your clones are ready, the current Account Owner can assign new ownership.  

Process overview

  1. Your Account Owner will need to provide us written permission (via email) to start the cloning process.
  2. A split form will be sent out to a Full Admin on your account who is spearheading the project. This form indicates clone configurations and the start date of the project.
  3. *On the start date you selected, a copy of your account is made.
  4. The copy is used to create the clones of your account. These clones are unique BambooHR accounts created as an exact replica of the original.
  5. The Billing team will reach out to collect payment information for the new account. Each clone will need a payment method added before it can be opened.
  6. After a payment method has been verified your account will be shared with you. Please note that your account may show in trial mode until the Billing team is finished.
  7. You may now log in and review your cloned accounts. Full Admin users on your account will need to review the account and manually remove any information not wanted in the clones (ATS, company files, benefits, time off policies, etc.). At this time, employees can be tagged for bulk removal, and your project associate can assist with the removal of these profiles.
  8. Once you are ready, you can direct your employees who have moved to the cloned accounts to log in using the URL of the clone. Your cloned accounts are now completed. 

*Please note that any changes made in your account after the start date selected will not transfer to the clones. Some customers choose to remove self-service access for the duration of the cloning process to avoid data loss in the clones. Do note that any changes made before the start date will be captured by the parent account. An admin user can use the Audit Trail report after the cloning process has been completed to compare the accounts and verify any changes made were transferred. 

Employee profile removal

There is not a way to undo the employee record deletion and any tagged profiles will be permanently removed from your account. If you want to retain any information from these employees, data can be exported through a custom report before requesting deletion. 

Our project associates have the ability to assist you with the bulk removal of employee profiles on your accounts as part of the cloning service. This deletes the entire user profile, including any documents they have saved on the Documents tab. Once your clones are created, and you have reviewed your accounts, you will be able to indicate which profiles you would like removed from the original account or any cloned account. Employee profiles that you would like to be deleted from your account will need to be tagged. We cannot delete employee profiles that are not tagged correctly. 

Charlotte Abbott - Personal

To indicate which employees should be removed from your accounts, you will need to add a “delete” tag to their Middle Name field on the Personal tab.

To tag an active employee, update their profile's Middle Name field on the Personal tab. Enter “delete” in the Middle Name field, replacing the user's middle name. You can use the power edit tool to make this change in bulk or you can use the importer. Any employees that have had their middle name replaced with “delete” will be removed from the account when requested.  

For inactive users on the account, you must use the import tool to bulk update the Middle Name field or manually update each employee from their profile. 

After all your employees are tagged, send a quick email to your assigned representative for processing. Employee profiles are typically removed in one to two business days after you notify your representative.

If you use the import tool to update your employee's Middle Name field, please ensure that you use lowercase letters for “delete". Importing “DELETE” will remove the value in the field rather than replacing it. 

What if I need to delete the Account Owner's profile?

To ensure that your account is not locked, do not mark your current Account Owner’s profile with the delete tag. Deleting the Account Owner profile before assigning a new owner can result in significant delays in your project, and you may be locked out of the account. 

If you need to remove an Account Owner from one or more accounts, please ensure to select a new owner for the account before requesting profile removals. To update the Account Owner, you will need to have your current owner log in to the account and change the Account Owner to someone else. Once a replacement Account Owner is established, the new owner can navigate to the old owner's profile and delete it.

When accounts are cloned, they will be created with the same Account Owner as the original account. Once the account is created, the current owner will need to log in and change the Account Owner if needed. 

Can candidate profiles be deleted?

Candidate profiles on the Hiring tab are not removed from your account as part of the employee record deletion. Candidates will be copied to all cloned accounts. If you need candidate profiles deleted, you will either need to delete the individual candidates from the Candidate List tab or you can delete the job opening. Deleting the job opening removes all candidates associated with the opening. 

Payroll accounts

Accounts with Payroll have two routes they can choose from depending on their needs. If your current account contains the EIN that you want to use in your cloned account, you will need to do an EIN transfer. If the cloned account does not have an EIN in BambooHR yet, a payroll implementation will be needed. 

Advantages and challenges of cloning BambooHR accounts

Cloning a BambooHR account can be a sign of organizational growth. It can enable local HR leaders or division managers to shoulder more of the administrative workload of people operations. However, as with any growth, additional collaboration and coordination are needed to keep operations running smoothly.

If you are considering cloning your BambooHR account, please keep the following advantages and challenges in mind:

Any administrators who need access to all your employees will have to create a login for each BambooHR account. After cloning, each account becomes a unique instance of BambooHR. The Full Admin users in each account will only have access to the employee information included in their account. This helps you ensure the appropriate access for these users.
  • Ask Yourself: How many administrators will need access to all of my accounts after cloning?
  • Remember: Non-employee user profiles are available for use for these admins and can be a great way for them to log in depending on their needs. 

By having multiple accounts you can allow users to be Full Admins without them seeing employees across your entire organization. Please keep in mind that users with Full Admin level access will always see all employee information in a specific account. If you need to restrict views in an account, custom access levels will need to be used.

Each account will have its own reports and custom report builder.
  • Ask Yourself: How often do we need reporting that covers a macro view of all of our accounts? Is there a central person who regularly analyzes patterns across the branches, or are they generally presented by branch leadership?
  • Remember: Reports can be exported from BambooHR and combined externally allowing you to build comprehensive reports that cover more than one BambooHR account.
Company announcements are posted in the single instance they are created and sent in.
  • Ask Yourself: What is the real productivity difference between a central announcement and an announcement sent out from the top level of every branch or location?
  • Remember: After cloning, each account is a unique independent instance of BambooHR. Announcements will need to be sent out individually from each account.
Each account bills and maintains a separate invoice.
  • Ask Yourself: What impact does this have on our financial processing? Is it a significant or negligible change?
  • Remember: We can match billing/invoice dates between accounts so that you have one day each month when your subscription is due. Each cloned account will require a payment method be added to it before it can open. You are not required to use the same payment method across all accounts.
E-signature templates will need to be set up separately for each account.
  • Ask Yourself: Will each instance of BambooHR have the same e-signature templates? How will we keep these templates consistent across accounts? Who will ensure accuracy for compliance? How often are new e-signature templates created? Do we often require everyone in the company to sign a new document?
  • Remember: Each account will need any new e-signature templates configured separately. You will need to upload that document to each account and set up the template manually on every account. If all of your employees are required to sign a specific e-signature document, you will need to log in to each account independently to send the request.  
Any API integrations will need to be set up separately for each cloned account.
  • Ask Yourself: How many integrations are we using? Does each integration allow for multiple BambooHR accounts to connect to it? Will I need to set up additional profiles or accounts in the integration to accommodate my new cloned accounts? Who manages my API, is it one person in the central location, or does each branch have a contact person in charge of integration support?
  • Remember: Non-employee profiles are a great way to create API connections for your integrations. 
  • API keys are copied to any cloned accounts. These keys will need to be reconfigured to work with your integrations on the new BambooHR domain. They can be deleted in Settings and reconfigured on the new account.
  • If you are selling a portion of your company or giving this account to a third party, you may wish to remove all API keys from the account before sharing. 
SAML or SSO login options will need to be reset and set up on any cloned accounts. When the account is cloned any copies will be returned to the default state with username and password being the login configuration.
  • Ask Yourself: Does my SAML or SSO provider allow multiple BambooHR accounts? Is my IT team ready to configure the additional account so my users can log in?
  • Remember: Access levels are transferred as part of the cloning process. If you do not want employees immediately accessing the new account, you will want to remove self-service access before your cloning begins. 
Customizations to fields/tables, translations, company holidays, and settings changes will need to be done separately for each account.
  • Ask Yourself: How often do our settings change? What is the time cost of multiplying these changes by the number of accounts? Who will spend this time making those changes?
  • Remember: Any clones will be an exact copy of your original account. Any changes made after the cloning date will not be reflected in the new account. An admin user will need to make those changes manually.
Reporting structures cannot be created across accounts. If employees report to someone in another account, that manager will not be able to approve time-off requests or view the employees information unless they are added as an active user in both accounts. This increases the billable employee count. 
  • Ask Yourself: How many employees are in this situation? What is the total monthly cost for this additional access?
  • Remember: For employees who do not need an employee profile, non-employee profiles can be used. 

Please review our Access Levels FAQ for additional details on the restrictions of non-employee users. 

The organizational chart and company directory will only display information for employees who are included in a particular account.
  • Ask Yourself: How many employees need to be seen across multiple accounts? How often do employees need to reference the company directory information for our other accounts?
  • Remember: Employees can have profiles on multiple accounts if needed.
The Applicant Tracking System can have jobs posted for a specific account, helping each account target their candidates without clutter from the other accounts.
  • Ask Yourself: What are our hiring plans for the locations/divisions in each new account? Is each location doing its own hiring or is a centralized hiring team being used?
  • Remember: Non-employee user profiles can be used for recruiters to access multiple accounts and manage the ATS. Please note that non-employee users cannot be listed as the hiring lead.
Logo & Branding: Each account can have a unique logo and URL.
  • Ask Yourself: Does our organization have consistent branding across our accounts? How will we ensure the correct assets are used?
  • Remember: Accounts are cloned as an exact copy of the template account. Logos will be copied to any clones and will need to be updated after the new accounts are created. New logos can be added from settings.
The Celebrations, Who’s Out, My Team, and any Admin Widgets only show employees in that specific account rather than the entire company.
  • Ask Yourself: Are there employees who will need a macro view of the entire company? Does each location or division manage its own dashboard or is there a central planning team?
  • Remember: Once the clones are created the accounts are separate. Dashboard and administrative tools will only reflect data included in that specific account. If you need company-wide reporting, custom reporting will need to be used in each account and exported from BambooHR to be combined together.
Creating clones of your account signals that your organization is ready for the advanced features in BambooHR Pro. Additional features such as Performance Management, Employee Community, and more will unlock additional tools for your company to use. 
  • Ask Yourself: Is our organization ready to move to BambooHR Pro? Would you like to discuss upgrading your package? Click here to be contacted about upgrade opportunities. 
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Do Full Admin users need to have an employee profile on all of the cloned accounts?

Not necessarily, you also have the option to create non-employee user profiles. These profiles can have Full Admin access and allow for users to log in to the account without needing to set up an additional profile. These users do not count towards overall headcount and will not affect your reporting. 

Typically, in instances where Full Admins need access to more than one account, they will have their employee profile on whichever account they are an employee on. For all other accounts they can have a non-employee user account. In configuring individual profiles in this manner, you can avoid double counting your HR admin users who are Admins in all of your accounts. 

Non-Employee profile users cannot be assigned as managers, hiring leads, and will not appear in the Org Chart or Directory. Please keep this in mind when you are configuring your account. Depending on your administrative needs, users may have to have a full employee profile on each account.

My new account is still showing in trial mode. How do I move to a subscription account?

While we are working on your new account you may notice that it shows in a Trial Mode status. Until our Billing team has completed the processing of the provided payment method, your account will be locked. 

Once payment information has been processed, your account will be updated automatically and set up as a subscription account. 

Who do I contact if I need help with my cloned accounts?

While your account is being serviced, you will be assigned a representative who will work with you throughout the entire process. Once your clones are completed, our Support team is happy to help. 

How do I update the Account Owner on my new account?

The current Account Owner will copy over to any clones of your account that are created. When you are ready to update the Account Owner on your cloned account, simply log in to the account and navigate to Settings to make the change. Once the Account Owner has been updated, the new owner can delete the profile of the former owner. You can find step by step directions to update your owner here. 

While you are processing your employee removals, it is very important that you do not delete your Account Owner or tag them with “delete” in the Middle Name field. Deleting the Account Owner before selecting a new one can take several business days to remedy and may cause some or all users to be locked out of your account temporarily.