Suspending vs terminating a worker
Last updated: August 25, 2026
When someone leaves your practice you have two options in Alpaca, and they do different things. This article explains which to use, what each one does to pay and access, and the one thing that is true of both: the worker keeps their pay stubs and tax documents.
The short version
Suspend | Terminate | |
|---|---|---|
Use it for | Pausing access — a leave of absence, an investigation, a temporary stop. | Someone leaving the practice for good. |
App access | Removed. | Removed on their last day (or at a time you schedule). |
Future payroll runs | Excluded. | Excluded. |
Final paycheck | Not created. | Created — including unused paid time off and submitted reimbursements. |
Reversible | Yes — un-suspend at any time. | Yes, while it is still pending: Cancel termination. |
Their pay stubs and tax documents | Still accessible to them. | Still accessible to them. |
Terminating a worker
Termination is a guided flow rather than a switch, because it has to get the final paycheck right. Open the worker from My Team and start the termination. You will be asked for:
Last day of work — the anchor for everything else.
Reason for leaving.
Access cut-off time (optional) — leave it blank to keep their access through the end of their last day. Times are in your practice's local time, and the suspension runs within the hour after the time you pick.
Personal email — so their tax documents can still reach them once their work email is turned off.
Notes — visible to practice admins only.
Before anything is saved you get a preview of the final paycheck: worked hours, unused paid time off, and reimbursements submitted in Alpaca. The preview also warns you if any worked hours have a $0 pay rate, which is your last chance to catch a missing rate before the final check goes out.
Discretion during the process
Alpaca deliberately sends the worker nothing while a termination is pending. If a final paycheck is being created they are not notified until it is paid; if there is no final paycheck they simply lose access on their last day. Scheduling a termination ahead of the conversation stays private.
Pending terminations
A scheduled termination appears in a Pending terminations section until it takes effect, with a status of Scheduled, In progress, In review, or Termination needs attention. From there you can view the worker's profile, view the payroll run, or Cancel termination.
If a termination is flagged as needing attention, something in the final-pay calculation could not be resolved automatically — open it and read the flag, or email support.
Access to pay stubs and tax documents
A former worker always keeps access to My Payroll → Payments and My Payroll → Documents.
This is not a courtesy, it is a legal requirement — a former employee must be able to retrieve their own W-2 or 1099-NEC. Suspending or terminating someone removes their clinical access, not their payroll records. This is also why the personal email field matters: it is how they get told their documents are ready once their work email is gone.
What about "Does Not Need Payroll"?
Do not use the payroll exclusion toggle for a departing worker. It suppresses their pay without producing a final paycheck, without handling unused PTO, and without cutting off access. Terminate them instead. See Excluding a worker from payroll for what that toggle is actually for.
Still stuck? Email support@alpacahealth.io and we will take a look.