Employee Offboarding — FAQs (External)
The Basics
What does the offboarding module do?
It replaces the shared documents and separate forms most teams use for exits. Your HR team creates a record for each departing employee; the people you assign complete the clearance items that belong to them; the departing employee tracks progress, signs their quitclaim, and completes their exit interview through a secure personal portal. Every action is recorded, so you have a complete history of the exit.
What do we need to set up first?
Three templates, built under Workflows: your clearance checklist, your exit interview form, and your quitclaim document. They bite at different moments — the checklist gates creating a record at all, the exit interview form is only needed if you're running one, and the quitclaim document is needed by the time you release the quitclaim, since no record reaches the end without one. Have all three ready before your first departure. Your implementation contact will walk your HR team through it.
There's a Sprout Starter checklist already in our account. Can we use it?
Not directly — it's a read-only example. It carries a Starter chip rather than a Draft or Active status, it can't be edited, and it doesn't appear in the template list when you create a departure, so you can't run a record off it. Duplicate it to get your own editable copy, then publish that. Templates you create behave normally — duplicate, set as default, delete, and switch between Draft and Active. Deleting is permanent, so duplicate first if you want a variant.
Which templates should we have ready?
Get the clearance checklist right before you start, because the checklist on a record is fixed once the record is created. If different departments or job grades need different checklists, create a separate template for each and pick the right one when you add the departure. Nothing chooses one for you by department or grade — it's your pick at creation.
How do we start a departure?
On the Offboarding page under Lifecycle, select New offboarding. A single page collects everything: the departing employee, separation type, last working day, their personal email, which templates to use, and who clears each section. You can opt out of the exit interview for a particular departure here. Selecting Start offboarding creates the record and sends the employee their portal invite.
Who clears each section?
Each section on your template carries a default assignee, and you can change it for one departure without touching the template — for a whole section, or for an individual item within it. A section can be set to Immediate Supervisor, which resolves from the departing employee's Sprout HR profile, or to a named Individual Employee. Every section has to resolve to a real, reachable person before the record can start; if a supervisor can't be found, you'll be shown exactly which section needs fixing.
Does this cover returning laptops, IT accounts and building passes?
As clearance items, yes — you decide what's on the checklist and who signs each part off. Command Center tracks that each item was completed and by whom; the actual collection and account closures stay in your existing processes.
For Departing Employees
How does a departing employee get to their portal after they leave?
Through a secure link and a PIN sent to their personal email — not their work email, and not their Sprout HR login. They need both: the link opens the portal and the PIN is how they sign in, so the PIN is not a spare key for a lost link. If the link stops working, their former employer's HR team can resend it — one resend replaces the link and the PIN together, so they should use the newest email.
How long does portal access last?
Through the whole process, and past the end of it. The portal stays open while your HR team reviews the signed quitclaim, while final pay is being released, and after the record is marked Completed — nothing in the process closes it, and it doesn't depend on their Sprout HR account still being active. If a link does stop working, your HR team can resend it.
What does the departing employee need to do?
Three things: watch their clearance progress, sign their quitclaim once it's available, and complete their exit interview. They're told in the portal and by email the moment the quitclaim is ready to sign — that's a one-off notification tied to their record reaching that point, not a recurring reminder.
How do they sign the quitclaim?
In the portal, on a document they can pan, zoom and open fullscreen, with their signature field highlighted. Three ways to sign: type it in a script font, draw it freehand, or upload an image of their signature. Submitting is final — a signature can't be edited or redone afterwards, so it's worth reviewing before they submit.
Do they get a copy of the quitclaim?
Yes, and twice over. They can download the signed quitclaim as soon as they submit it, and once your HR team has confirmed it a Download confirmed quitclaim option appears. It's the same document — what's changed is that your team has verified it — so that's the copy to keep. Both stay available after the record is Completed.
What's the exit interview like for them?
It's a section near the bottom of their portal, below their clearance progress. It has to be completed in one sitting — there is no draft and no Save button, so nothing is kept until they submit. Submitting is final too: they get a confirmation prompt before their answers lock in, and can't reopen them afterwards. Every question appears, in a fixed order, and anything required that they've skipped is flagged when they try to submit. Worth telling people to set aside the time before they start.
Can they see who cleared what?
Yes. They see each section's progress and each completed item stamped with who cleared it and when — the same detail your HR team sees.
For Section Assignees
How do the people responsible for clearance know they have items to complete?
Each clearance section is assigned to someone — often a department head, but it can be any employee, and a section can be set to follow the departing employee's immediate supervisor rather than a named person. They get an item in their To-Do list in Command Center, and an email letting them know it's there. If your company completes clearance in sequence rather than all at once, they're emailed when their turn comes instead. They sign in with their normal Sprout HR credentials — there's no separate account for this.
What can they see?
Their own sections are the only ones they can act on. The rest of the record is visible but read-only, with a summary counting how many sections are cleared, so they can see how far the exit has got without being able to touch anyone else's items.
How do they finish?
They tick items and upload anything a document is required for — an item requiring an attachment stays unticked until the file is there. Ticking alone doesn't sign anything off, and there's no separate save — Mark as cleared is the only way to commit, and a section has to be fully ticked before it can be used. Ticks survive moving around the product or switching tabs, but they are lost if the session ends and the person is signed out. So it's worth working through a section in one sitting rather than leaving it part-completed for a long stretch. Once a section is signed off it's read-only even to them; only your HR team can reopen it.
What if the wrong person was assigned, or an assignee has already left?
Your HR team completes that section themselves. They have full edit access to every section regardless of who it's assigned to, and each item records who actually completed it, so the history stays accurate. There's no need to contact Support, and the record doesn't need to be started again.
Will Command Center chase people who haven't finished their items?
Not today — there are no automatic reminder emails. This is the most important thing to plan around: staying on top of pending clearance means watching the offboarding list's status and overdue indicators and your To-Do items, and following up directly. If reminders matter to your process, tell your Customer Success Manager.
Quitclaim and Final Pay
How is the quitclaim document built?
In the Document Builder under Workflows, as a single flowing document with the usual formatting controls. You drop in merge fields — the employee's name, position and department, their last working day and separation type, your company name, the date, and the final pay amount in both numbers and words — and they fill themselves in on each record. Saving publishes it straight away; there's no separate draft step for quitclaim documents as there is for the checklist and the exit interview form.
Is the final pay amount pulled from Sprout Payroll automatically?
No. Your HR team types the figure in when moving a record to the quitclaim stage. It comes from whoever computes final pay in your organization — usually Finance, Accounting or Payroll — and that coordination happens outside Command Center. The written-out version fills itself in from what they typed and can't be edited separately. The two signatures on the quitclaim are the check on that figure.
What if the wrong final pay amount is entered?
Get the figure right before releasing the quitclaim. Once it has been released, the amount is fixed into that record's document and there is no way to change it — asking the employee to re-sign doesn't reopen it. If it does happen, contact Sprout Support.
Who signs the quitclaim?
Two parties: your company and the departing employee. Whether your company's side is a separate person is set on the quitclaim template. If a Company Signatory is enabled, your HR team either assigns it out — the signatory gets an email with a direct link to the signing view, which is often how they reach Command Center at all — or signs inline themselves. The signatory can be someone outside HR, such as a Finance representative. If the template has no Company Signatory, releasing the quitclaim sends it straight to the employee.
Does HR sign again when they confirm a signed quitclaim?
No. Confirming is a review step, not a third signature — your HR team is checking the submission before final pay is released. It asks for a second, explicit confirmation, deliberately, because it can't be undone.
A quitclaim came back rejected with a request to re-sign. What happened?
Your HR team reviewed the signed quitclaim and asked for it to be signed again, with a reason given. The record returns to the quitclaim stage, the employee sees the reason, their previous signature is cleared, and they sign again from scratch through the same portal. This is a normal part of the process, not an error.
How does a record finish?
Paying the final pay happens outside Command Center, through your normal payroll or disbursement process. Once it has been paid, your HR team uploads proof of it — that upload is the mark-as-disbursed step, so a record can't be closed without it. The employee then receives a completion email with the proof attached.
Tracking Progress
What stages does a record go through?
Seven, in order, one of which is skipped if you're not running an exit interview:
- In Progress — clearance underway
- Awaiting Exit Interview — clearance done, exit interview still to come (skipped entirely if the record has no exit interview)
- For Final Pay Computation — with your HR team, who take the figure from whoever computes final pay in your organization; that happens outside Command Center
- For Quitclaim Release — waiting on the employee's signature
- For Review — signed, waiting on your HR team
- For Disbursement — confirmed; the payment itself is made through your normal payroll process, outside Command Center
- Completed — proof of disbursement recorded
How do we see what's running late?
Two separate indicators, and they mean different things. A Due on column carries each record's final-pay deadline — the last working day plus 30 calendar days — and shows a red overdue note beneath the date once that passes, until the record is completed. Separately, a record whose clearance wasn't finished by the employee's last working day is flagged Clearance overdue, with no grace period.
What reporting do we get?
A live view of where things stand: total in offboarding, employee exits, completed, average time to offboard, awaiting disbursement, final pay overdue, clearance overdue, and awaiting quitclaim — also shown on your dashboard. These are current counts rather than trends; comparisons over time and between groups aren't available yet. See Command Center Basics — FAQs for how dashboard tiles work.
Can we see who did what?
Yes. Every record has an Activity tab — a day-by-day history of every action taken on it. Entries can't be edited or deleted by anyone; a correction is always added as a new entry. See Command Center Basics — FAQs for the workspace-wide audit trail.
Who can open exit interview responses?
Any of your HR administrators. Responses are reached through the offboarding list, which is HR-admin-gated, and there is no narrower control — the exit interview form builder carries a response-reviewer setting, but it does not restrict access in this release. If your exit interviews are treated as confidential and you need the audience kept smaller than "our HR admins", that isn't possible yet; raise it with your Customer Success Manager.
Where do we go for one record's detail?
Open the record from the offboarding list. Details shows progress, quitclaim status, each section's assignee, and the option to resend the employee's portal invite; Activity shows the history. Every resend is recorded.
Changes and Corrections
Can we add or remove a clearance item after a record is created?
No. The checklist is fixed at creation from the template you chose, which is why getting the template right beforehand matters. Editing the template later doesn't change records already running — it applies to records created after the edit.
If you find yourself wanting to vary the list, build the variations as separate templates — one per role, department or job grade — and pick the right one when you add the departure.
Can we change who is assigned to a clearance section after the record is created?
Assignees are set when you add the departure and are fixed once the record starts — but you don't need to change one to finish the record. Your HR team can complete any section themselves, whoever it's assigned to, and the history records who actually did it. Reassigning after the fact isn't available.
Does creating a departure record update the employee's status in Sprout HR?
No. Employment status, expected separation date, and reason for leaving still need updating in Sprout HR alongside creating the record.
We sometimes see a count instead of a name on a clearance section.
This is a display issue and can happen on an account of any size — the section renders a count where the assignee's name and avatar should be. It affects only how the assignee is displayed: the assignments themselves, your clearance information and every sign-off are unaffected. Confirm who the assignee is from the record, or contact them directly. A fix is already scheduled, so there's nothing Support can add in the meantime.
What This Release Doesn't Cover
Can the exit interview change based on an earlier answer?
Not today. All questions appear in a fixed order. If your form has section branching configured, it doesn't take effect yet.
The practical workaround is separate forms rather than one branching form — for example one for voluntary resignations and another for company-initiated exits — and you pick which to use on each departure.
Can we cancel a departure record?
Not today — cancelling a separation isn't built. If a departure falls through, speak to your Customer Success Manager.
Can we export the offboarding history ourselves?
Not today — the history is view-only inside Command Center. If you need a formal record, for a dispute or an audit for example, contact Sprout Support and we'll produce it for you.
Can departing employees upload an ID to verify their signature?
No. Signing in the portal doesn't ask for proof of identity.
Do we get trends over time?
Not today. The metrics are a current snapshot; department-level bottleneck trends and comparisons across groups of exits aren't available yet.
Does this work for employees outside the Philippines?
The overdue tracking is built on the Philippine rule of final pay within 30 days of the last working day, so the deadline it shows won't match another country's requirements. Talk to your Customer Success Manager before using it outside the Philippines.
Getting Help
Questions about your setup or templates go to your Customer Success Manager or implementation contact. If something looks wrong, contact Sprout Support and tell us which departure record it relates to. Departing employees should contact their former employer's HR team, who can resend a portal link or raise it with us.
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