Last updated: Apr 9, 2026, 10:17 AM
On the Basic info step of hiring a new employee in Toast Payroll, you have the option to select No for Will you provide an email address? But what happens after that?
Employees without email addresses will be unable to fill out their portion of new hire onboarding, so we highly recommend all employees have an email address, even if it's only to fill out Toast Payroll onboarding information and have access to their paystubs and year-end documents like Form W-2s.
New hire onboarding includes:
An employer can fill out direct deposit information on an employee's behalf and also upload a paper copy of an employee’s Form W-4 and Form I-9, but Toast Payroll will not be able to read these directly from the upload. In the case of a paper Form I-9, this is ok as long as it’s filled out completely and correctly. Use these steps to upload the paper Form I-9 to your employee’s profile.
On the other hand, Form W-4 (and any state or local equivalents) can be filled out by an employer by:
We also recommend uploading the paper Form W-4 via the same steps as the Form I-9. Once this is complete, you can remove the employee from your onboarding dashboard (Team > Onboarding) by selecting the yellow edit button and choosing Mark this new hire as complete.
As a last step for total verification, verify the employee’s social security number on their profile for accuracy. Not doing so can risk inaccurate and/or incomplete tax filings along with associated penalties and fees.