Can an ATS send new hires to your payroll system?

Yes. A modern ATS can push a new hire’s personal details, contract terms, start date and signed documents into your payroll or HR system the moment they reach the Hired stage, so nobody retypes anything. There are three ways to get there: a native connector, a structured export and import, or API middleware. The catch is that vendor integration pages overpromise, so the real questions are which fields actually move, who maintains the link when the payroll system changes, and where the GDPR boundary between recruiting and employment sits.

What moves from the ATS to payroll?

A handoff worth having covers four groups of data:

• Personal details: name, contact details, address, date of birth.
• Contract terms: job title, salary, hours per week, contract type and duration, and the collective agreement scale where one applies.
• Start date and placement: team, manager, location, cost centre. The start date matters most, because payroll runs on it.
• Documents: the signed contract, plus any diplomas or certificates the role legally requires.

There is an honest footnote here. Some fields payroll needs were never in the ATS, and should not have been: the citizen service number and usually the bank account. A good handoff includes a short onboarding form that asks the new hire for exactly those fields at offer stage, so they arrive validated and consented rather than via an email thread.

Why retyping is the real cost

Without a handoff, someone in HR opens the candidate record on one screen and types it into payroll on another. Every field typed twice is a field that can diverge, and the divergence surfaces at the worst possible moment: a transposed IBAN digit or a start date one week off shows up on the first payslip. The new colleague’s first impression of your company becomes a missing salary and an apology.

The quieter cost is the ritual itself: the weekly new-starters spreadsheet, the chasing of missing fields, the double-checking that fixes nothing structurally. Hire-to-payroll is one of the clearest wins in what recruitment automation can and cannot cover, precisely because the work is pure transcription with zero judgment in it.

What does connecting to AFAS, Exact Online or Nmbrs look like?

The big three of the Dutch stack each connect differently, and knowing the shape helps you ask sharper questions.

AFAS runs on its connector framework: an administrator authorises an app connector in Profit, issues a token, and the integration writes new employees into the dossier through it. The link is mature, but it is permissioned, so you need someone with AFAS admin rights in the room during setup.

Exact Online is a cloud product with a REST API behind OAuth. Connecting looks like signing in to Exact and granting the ATS access to the right administration; the integration then creates the employee record there.

Nmbrs was built API-first for partner integrations: you generate an API token, point the connection at the right company, and test against a sandbox before anything touches the live payroll run.

International suites tend to look weaker exactly here. Systems like Greenhouse or Workable carry large integration marketplaces, but a direct line into Dutch payroll is rare, and the link usually runs through middleware or a local implementation partner. Recruitifly took the opposite route: AFAS, Exact Online, Nmbrs and Visma Raet are connected natively, with Personio, BambooHR, HiBob, Workday and SAP SuccessFactors alongside, and SCIM or a signed webhook covering the rest. An admin connects once from settings, runs a test hire, and from then on every hire flows through on its own.

Native connector, file export, or middleware?

Pattern	How it works	Setup effort	Where it breaks
Native connector	The ATS pushes the record on hire through a vendor-maintained link	Authorise once, map fields, run a test	Coverage: only the named systems exist
Export and import	A structured file per starter or per week, loaded by hand	None upfront, manual forever	Someone skips a week, typos creep back in
API middleware	A tool or unified API translates between the two systems	Medium to high, someone owns the recipe	Field mismatches and silent failures nobody maintains

Pick by hiring volume and ownership. If you hire a handful of people per year, a disciplined export is defensible. From a few hires per month, a native connector pays for itself in the first prevented payslip error. Middleware fits when your payroll system is exotic or your IT team wants control; just check what API access costs first, because some vendors bundle it and others sell it separately. At Recruitifly it is an add-on at EUR 49 per month, with the connectors themselves part of the platform.

What stays in the ATS after the hire?

This is where GDPR draws a hard line, and a good integration respects it through data minimisation: send payroll only what payroll needs.

The employee file, contract, compensation and personal details, moves to HR and falls under employment and fiscal retention duties measured in years. The recruitment trail, interview notes, assessment scores, the comparison against other applicants, stays in the ATS and falls under recruitment retention: the Dutch guideline is four weeks after the procedure ends, or up to a year with consent. Copying interview notes into the HRIS feels thorough and is exactly wrong, because it moves opinion-laden data into a system with a decades-long memory. The rejected candidates from the same vacancy follow the recruitment clock too. If your system cannot enforce these timers, start with what a GDPR-compliant ATS looks like before worrying about connectors.

What to ask a vendor before trusting the integrations page

A logo wall proves nothing. Ask these, in writing:

1. Is my payroll system named, or is the answer “we have an API”? An API means you are building the integration.
2. Which fields map, exactly? Ask for the field list and check contract type, hours and scale, not just name and email.
3. Who maintains the connector when AFAS or Exact ships a breaking change, and how fast?
4. Is there a test mode? You want a dry run or test hire before the link touches live payroll.
5. What happens when a push fails? Retry and alert is the right answer. Silence is the wrong one.
6. Is it included in my plan or a paid add-on?
7. Can I restrict what is sent, so interview data never leaves the ATS?
8. Is every push logged, so you can answer “where did this record come from” a year later?

Recruitifly’s own answers to that list, alongside the rest of the platform, are on the features page. The company is in private beta at the moment: if your hires currently travel to payroll by spreadsheet, talk to us and bring your AFAS, Exact or Nmbrs setup. A test hire takes less time than this article did.