Getting started with EmployDB: setup in an afternoon
EmployDB has no implementation project: a small company goes from registration to working HR records in an afternoon, and most of that time is deciding your structure rather than operating software. This guide is the practical sequence — for direct registrants and DAXTOP businesses both — plus the handful of habits that determine whether the system stays accurate.
Step 1: register and verify
Direct registrants: create your account at employdb.com, register the company, and complete employer verification — the review that confirms your business is real (details in our verification article); have your company details and a company-domain email ready and it is quick. DAXTOP businesses: enable HR management when registering a product on daxtop.com or daxtop.app — or from your existing product’s settings — and your company arrives in EmployDB with verification extended from your platform relationship and your owner account already in place.
Step 2: build the structure — lightly
Create your departments and positions as they actually are today, not as an aspirational org chart: real structure you will maintain beats detailed structure you will not. A ten-person company might need three departments and six positions; resist inventing more. Structure in EmployDB is evolvable — departments and positions added later, transfers recorded as events — so start minimal and let reality extend it. Then set your HR roles: who administers, who has HR-staff access, and remember every action is attributed and logged, so give access by need.
Step 3: add your team
DAXTOP businesses find registered team members synced automatically — review positions and departments, correct anything, done. Direct registrants add employees with the fundamentals: name, position, department, employment type, start date. Two accuracy habits at this step pay for years: use real start dates (including for long-tenured staff — their history deserves the right anchor), and attach the contract to each profile now, while the documents are findable. Employees receive their own access and see their records from day one, which immediately puts your best error-checkers — the employees themselves — on duty.
Step 4: record events as they happen — the habit that is the system
From setup onward, the operating rule is simple: when something happens, record it that week — the promotion with its effective date and letter, the completed training with its certificate, the policy acknowledgment, the new hire, the departure (ended, never deleted). An event recorded contemporaneously is a fact; the same event reconstructed at year-end is a guess with a date. This single habit produces everything downstream: audit-proof files, evidence-based reviews, clean metrics, and — because you are a verified employer — your employees’ permanent verified histories accumulating as a side effect of ordinary administration.
What to do in month one
- Backfill the recent past only — this year’s promotions and completed training, with documents. Deep historical reconstruction is optional and can wait; forward accuracy cannot.
- Store the handbook and collect acknowledgments — policy documents into the system, acknowledgments recorded per employee (see our handbook guide).
- Tell your employees what they now have — records they can see, a history they own, a dispute route if something is wrong. Participation improves when people know the system works for them.
- Decide on Premium later — the free plan is complete for HR administration; add network features (recruiter requests, analytics, API) when you need them, per our pricing page.