> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.tryfinch.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Reconcile Employees

> Learn how to reconcile employee profiles in Finch using PII such as full name and date of birth (DOB), email, or SSN.

If you have employees or contractors in your database that you need to match with Finch's `individual_id`s, you will need a reliable method to reconcile the two. The following are two best practices for developers building with Finch.

### Recommended: full name + date of birth

All payroll systems require at least a first and last name, therefore, finding a match by full name is a good way of reconciling individuals. However, on rare occasions, naming collisions do happen even within the same company. Therefore, we recommend using a concatenation of `first_name`, `last_name`, and `dob`, all data points available from the `/individual` endpoint.

<Warning>
  Finch returns `first_name`, `last_name`, and `dob` for all systems we support. However, sometimes all the data points not inputted into the system by the payroll administrator of a company. We recommend confirming with your customer that the data points are inputted into the system for all employees before reconciliation.
</Warning>

### Alternative: email address

Finch returns email addresses from the `/individual` endpoint. The uniqueness of emails, *if they are returned by the underlying employment system*, makes it a good data point to reconcile employees against.

<Warning>
  Finch's API does not always return emails. We find `first_name`, `last_name`, and `dob` are more consistent than `email`s.
</Warning>

### Alternative: Social Security Number

Finch returns Social Security Number (SSN) of an individual, which can be helpful in identifying unique individuals. However, SSN is not returned by default since it is a sensitive field; you must [enable SSN](/developer-resources/Enable-SSN-Field) for your application first.