thread Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account in Staff & Payroll

Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

TinyZaps — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 06:15:50 GMT

We just started using Square Team and Payroll so that employees can clock in/out + have tips managed all through our POS.

The problem is I've already had this happen with 2 staff members where they cannot complete onboarding because Square tells them "This email is already associated with an existing account" and blocks them.

I've called square support 3 times now and the only options I've heard are:

Use another email - not acceptable
That the employee needs to get the previous employee to free their account - ludicrous answer

Seems like a pretty basic feature to let emails be tied to multiple employers. God forbid an employee is hired part-time by 2 employers both using Square payroll... insane.

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

TheRealChipA — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 20:27:56 GMT

Hey @TinyZaps. Is it possible that your employee was employed by another business that used Square Payroll and just forgot? I ask because it happens all the time. I had an employe last year who had this problem, and when I dug a little deeper they realize that they already had their own Square account because of that previous employer. When they signed into that account (after resetting the password they had forgotten), they were able to join my team and everything was great!

Square Team/Payroll is built to know that an employee could have multiple employers that use Square Payroll, and it handles that beautifully with just one employee Square sign-in. The problem happens when employees forget they already have an account. They should be able to just sign into their old account using the email address, but they might have to request a password reset first.

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

TinyZaps — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 20:53:44 GMT

Unfortunately the employee logged in, reset their password, and was still locked out from onboarding with us. This is after they even had to call Square support which went nowhere. We had to dig up some other email address to use which seemed like the only option.

"Square Team/Payroll is built to know that an employee could have multiple employers that use Square Payroll" - if this is the case, why can't 1 email be associated with multiple employers at the same time?

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

TheRealChipA — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 20:57:21 GMT

It can be. I had an employee last year who work for me and another local employer who used Square Team/Payroll. Once they signed in with both of us, they seemed to be able to switch back and forth at will. What it will not do is allow that employee to try to create two accounts using the same email — one for me and one for the other employer. Once they realized their mistake and just signed in to their existing account using my invitation link, both were connected for them.

Of course, that’s my experience. Something else seems to be going on with you and your employee. Sorry to have muddled your post with an unworkable solution you had already tried.

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

muskanarora — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 21:27:55 GMT

You can use the same email across both employers. Were they trying to accept via SMS and then add the email? If so, then it creates another account with the phone number.

If you have added their email, please ask them to accept the invite by the clicking on the link that they receive on the email that they have the account on!

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

muskanarora — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 21:28:51 GMT

You can use the same email across both employers. Were they trying to accept via SMS and then add the email? If so, then it creates another account with the phone number which is what is causing the issue.

If you have added their email, please ask them to accept the invite to your business by the clicking on the link that they receive on the email that they have the account on!

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

TinyZaps — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:05:41 GMT

Both myself and the employee spoke to @Square customer support and multiple support reps told us the only 2 options are to:

Use a different email or
Contact the previous employer (insane request)

So I don't know where the disconnect is of and maybe just the customer support is really bad?

Either way we couldn't get it to work following any of the instructions so just had to use another email and at the end of the day it's a should be looked at as a bug, not a feature, with a horrible UX.

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

muskanarora — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:20:04 GMT

That is unfortunate. We'll look into why the customer support provided you with that answer and improve it.

Definitely not the expectation here.

Could you confirm that your employee was using the link via the email they had the account on and not the one received via SMS?

Re: Cannot onboard employee bec email is associated to other Square account

SteepAriel — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:52:26 GMT

I am currently dealing with this for a former employee. Guess what? Employers previous or current have no access to change personal information on square. Its greyed out and states only the employee can change this.

The square representative said to contact the previous employer... I am the previous employer. I have no access to change anything. They told me only the employee can change it.

All of this is even dumber because the employee is de-activated. it should be registering in the system as no longer active. Why would the email and number still be locked out after the employee is no longer in our system? So solution, create new emails for your employees. dont let them rely on their personal emails. This new version of Square makes me consider switching to toast.