Zoho Recruit records the right to work process, and you carry out the check

Zoho Recruit and UK right to work checks divide cleanly. Zoho Recruit holds the process, and you carry out the legal check. You can build a hiring pipeline with a dedicated right to work stage. You can record what was checked and when, and track the date of any follow-up check. The check itself stays with you, under Home Office guidance.

A right to work check is the process of confirming that a person is legally allowed to work in the UK. The definition comes from Blaze HR's employer guide. Usually it means checking official documents, or checking an online immigration status.

This guide covers four things. It covers what the law asks of you, and how to shape a hiring pipeline in Zoho Recruit for UK hiring. It covers what to record against each candidate. It also covers how to keep follow-up checks and retention dates in view after the hire.

Zoho Recruit cannot tell you whether a document is genuine or a status is valid. The software is where you keep evidence that you did the check correctly and on time. That evidence is what protects you if the Home Office looks at your records.

The legal duty for right to work checks stays with the employer

UK employers must check that a job applicant is allowed to work for them before employing them. GOV.UK's page on checking a job applicant's right to work states this directly. The law sits in sections 15 to 25 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, including the new section 15A from 1 October 2026, section 24B of the Immigration Act 1971 and Schedule 6 of the Immigration Act 2016.

A statutory excuse is a defence against a civil penalty if the Home Office later finds you employed someone without the right to work. You gain it only by doing the check correctly, before the person starts work. Justice Directory puts the civil penalty at up to £60,000 per illegal worker. In serious cases, a criminal conviction can carry up to five years in prison.

Software and outside providers do not move this duty. Gherson LLP notes that engaging an identity service provider does not transfer liability. Responsibility for conducting checks correctly remains with the employer. A Zoho Recruit setup is the same. It records what you did, but it is not the check.

That is why the setup in this guide aims at three outcomes:

capture: every check is recorded against the candidate before the start date
expiry tracking: time-limited permission produces a follow-up date someone owns
audit trail: copies and responses are kept for as long as the rules require

Three right to work check methods and the evidence each one leaves

UK employers can check right to work in three ways. You can run a manual document check, a Home Office online check with a share code, or a check through a digital verification provider. Each method leaves different evidence, so your Zoho Recruit record must allow for all three.

A share code is a code the individual generates from the Home Office online service. It lets you see their Home Office record. Justice Directory states that right to work codes are 9 characters long and must begin with W. You cannot accept codes beginning with R or S. Codes are valid for 90 calendar days from issue.

Method	Who it applies to	What you keep
Manual document check	People without digital status, including British and Irish citizens, who cannot get a share code	A clear copy of the original document and the date of the check
Home Office online check	People with digital immigration status, including former BRP holders	The online check response, plus the share code and any reference details
Right to Work digital verification service provider (RtW DVSP)	British and Irish passport holders, and other documents where the issuing authority provides them digitally (check the current employer's guide for the full scope)	The provider's check output, and the facial comparison where one was used

IDVT means Identity Document Validation Technology. It scans documents to confirm they are authentic. GOV.UK says you can no longer accept biometric residence cards or permits, and should ask for a share code instead. A manual check can happen on a live video link. However, Justice Directory is clear that you must have the original documents in your physical possession.

Hiring pipelines in Zoho Recruit: what you can configure on each edition

A hiring pipeline in Zoho Recruit is the sequence of stages and statuses a candidate moves through for a job opening. Until a recent release, every job opening had to follow the same pipeline. Zoho's announcement of multiple hiring pipelines changed that. You can now create several pipelines, each with its own stages and statuses, and assign the right one to each job opening.

Multiple pipelines need the Applications module. They are supported on all paid plans in both the Staffing Agency and Corporate HR editions. Without the Applications module, you get a single pipeline of up to 10 stages. The limits per plan are below.

Plan	Pipelines	Stages
Standard	5	15
Professional	15	30
Enterprise	25	50

Three features of the pipeline release matter for right to work:

You can create a pipeline from scratch or clone an existing one.
You can switch a live job opening to another pipeline without creating a new job.
During a switch, you choose whether historical application data is updated, and Zoho Recruit maps existing records to the new pipeline automatically.

Cloning and switching mean you can add a right to work stage to roles already being advertised. You do not have to wait for new roles or rebuild them.

Enterprise allows 50 pipeline stages, against 10 on a single pipeline without the Applications module: Without the Applications module 10, Standard 15, Professional 30, Enterprise 50 (stages) — Source: help.zoho.com

Worked example: adding a right to work stage to a UK hiring pipeline

Picture a firm on the Corporate HR edition, Professional plan, with the Applications module switched on. That plan allows 15 pipelines and 30 stages. The firm wants every UK hire to pass a recorded right to work check before the hire is confirmed.

Clone the pipeline the firm already uses, and name the copy "UK hire with right to work check".
Set the stages in order: Applied, Screening, Interview, Offer, Right to work check, Hired.
Inside the Right to work check stage, add statuses that mirror the real work. Examples are "Share code requested", "Check booked", "Check completed" and "Referred to Employer Checking Service".
Switch each live UK job opening to the new pipeline. Decide whether historical application data should update too.
Keep a separate pipeline for any route with extra rules, such as roles under a sponsor licence.

The order matters more than the names. The check must be done before the employee starts work, so the right to work stage sits after the offer and before the hire. The Employer Checking Service status covers people who cannot show their documents or online status. In that case, GOV.UK says you must ask the Home Office to check.

When Svennis sets this up, we place the right to work check as its own stage directly before the hire stage. The failure we see at clients is a check recorded after the start date rather than before it. A visible stage makes that gap obvious to the hiring manager.

What to record against each candidate for a right to work check

Each right to work check in Zoho Recruit needs a short, consistent record. The list below draws on GOV.UK, OTS Solicitors and Athi Law. OTS Solicitors describes the Home Office documents as two lists. List A covers documents for a person with a permanent right to work. List B covers documents for a person with a temporary right to work.

Item to record	Why it matters	Where the rule comes from
Date of the check	Proves the check came before the start date	OTS Solicitors, three key steps
Method used	Shows which prescribed route gave the statutory excuse	GOV.UK and Justice Directory
Document type, List A or List B	Tells you whether a follow-up check will be due	OTS Solicitors
Clear copy of the document, saved in a format that cannot be altered, such as PDF	Required for a manual check	OTS Solicitors and Athi Law
Online check response, share code and reference	Evidence of an online check	Athi Law
Positive Verification Notice, if issued	GOV.UK says you must keep it	GOV.UK
Expiry date of permission	Drives the follow-up check	GOV.UK

A Positive Verification Notice is the Home Office's confirmation that an applicant has the right to work. You receive it after a check through the Employer Checking Service.

Keep the record the same for every candidate, whatever their nationality. Athi Law notes that zero-hours workers need the same checks as permanent staff, and since 1 October 2026 many gig and contract arrangements are in scope too.

Expiry dates and follow-up checks after the hire

A follow-up check is a fresh prescribed check, done on or before the date time-limited permission or a Positive Verification Notice expires. It does not have to use the same method as the first check. GOV.UK says that if an employee's right to work is time-limited, you must check their documents again when it is due to expire. A follow-up check can be done online with a share code.

Not every hire needs a follow-up date. Justice Directory gives three timing rules:

Pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme: check before the start, with no repeat check afterwards.
A Positive Verification Notice for a worker with an in-time application: the statutory excuse lasts six months from the date of issue.
An existing worker whose permission expires while an application they made in time is still outstanding: up to 28 calendar days to get a Positive Verification Notice or run an online check. Without an in-time application there is no grace period, and this never applies to new hires.

Record the follow-up date when you record the check, not later. Then make one person responsible for reviewing upcoming dates on a fixed day each week. If you already report in Zoho Analytics for business dashboards, the follow-up dates belong on a list there, sorted by date.

Decide early where the date lives once the candidate becomes an employee. A date that stays in a recruitment record nobody opens after the start will be missed. Forgetting to recheck limited permits is one of the common mistakes Blaze HR lists.

Source: justicedirectory.co.uk

Document uploads and video calls: where a Zoho Recruit form helps and where it stops

A candidate upload form linked to Zoho Recruit helps with preparation, but it does not complete a manual check. One UK non-profit described this approach on the Zoho community thread on managing right to work checks in Zoho Recruit. Candidates would upload ID documents through a form, and the team would review them.

In the same proposal, a document copy of satisfactory quality would trigger an appointment. The documents would then be viewed over a live conference call. Scheduling that appointment is sensible, and a tool such as Zoho Bookings for appointment scheduling is built for it.

The legal limit is the originals. Justice Directory states that a manual check may take place on a live video link. Even so, you must have the original documents in your physical possession. An uploaded scan shown on a call does not meet that test on its own.

Use the upload step for what it does well:

collecting the share code early, so you can confirm it is 9 characters and begins with W
spotting poor copies before the appointment
telling the candidate which originals to bring or send

Then record the actual check, with its date and method, in the right to work stage.

Audit trail and retention: keeping right to work records for two years after employment

GOV.UK requires you to keep copies of right to work documents during employment and for 2 years after the employee stops working for you. Your Zoho Recruit setup should make both parts of that period easy to prove. NET Recruit warns that a poorly stored record could leave you unprotected if the Home Office audits your records.

The statutory excuse also has limits that affect your records. OTS Solicitors notes that the excuse ends when employment ends for any reason. A returning employee needs a fresh check. Home Office guidance also says the excuse is lost if it was "reasonably apparent" that a document was false. That means an untrained person, looking carefully but briefly and without technical aids, could have realised it was not genuine.

Sponsor licence holders carry an extra duty. OTS Solicitors states that sponsors must have systems to ensure checks are properly conducted on all employees, not only sponsored workers. If the Home Office finds staff without a legal right to work, a licence can be downgraded, suspended or revoked.

For the audit trail, keep four habits:

store the copy or online response against the candidate, not in a personal inbox
record the leaving date, so the two-year retention clock has a start
delete the copy and the check record securely once the two years after the leaving date have passed, and set a reminder in Zoho for that date
treat a rehire as a new candidate with a new check

What the 1 October 2026 changes mean for UK employers using Zoho Recruit

The Home Office employer's guide changed again on 1 October 2026. The GOV.UK publication page for the employer's guide added final guidance for that date as an 83-page PDF. The guide was first published on 16 May 2014 and has been revised many times since.

The scope has widened. Justice Directory states that from 1 October 2026, the duty also covers three groups:

organisations that engage individuals under a worker's contract
organisations that use individual sub-contractors
organisations that operate an online matching service

There is no general grace period for the wider scope, so new arrangements from 1 October 2026 need a check before work starts. Civil penalties for the newly covered groups apply only where the engagement began on or after that date. If you engage workers or individual sub-contractors as well as employees, consider a separate Zoho Recruit pipeline for them with the same right to work stage. For some arrangements, such as contractual chains, the guide also requires written contract terms, substitution controls and identity checks, so add a status for each of those. Truly self-employed contractors running their own business are out of scope.

Recent updates show how often the detail moves. In June 2025, the guide clarified that expired physical Biometric Residence Permits are not acceptable proof. Gherson LLP describes the regime as changing frequently. Name one person who reads each update and adjusts your stage statuses to match.

For questions on a specific case, GOV.UK lists the Employer Enquiry helpline on 0300 790 6268. It is open Monday to Thursday, 9am to 4:45pm, and Friday, 9am to 4:30pm.

Next steps for setting up right to work tracking in Zoho Recruit

The practical order for setting up right to work tracking in Zoho Recruit is short. Work through it before your next UK hire, not after it.

Confirm your edition and plan, and whether the Applications module is on. This decides whether you can run more than one pipeline.
Clone your current pipeline and add a right to work stage between Offer and Hired, with statuses for each check method.
Agree the record you keep for every candidate, using the table in this guide.
Name the person who reviews follow-up dates each week, and decide where those dates live after the start.
Switch live UK job openings to the new pipeline, and decide whether historical data should update.
Read the current Home Office employer's guide yourself, because the legal judgement stays with you.

If you want help with the build, Svennis as a Zoho partner in the UK can configure the pipeline and the reporting around it. If you are unsure what a partner would and would not do here, our explanation of what a Zoho partner is sets out the role. Either way, keep the check itself with the person in your organisation who is accountable for it.

Sources

Looking for a Zoho partner in the UK? Svennis has been a Zoho Premium Partner since 2011, with more than 200 implementations delivered. See how we work as a UK Zoho Partner.

Zoho Recruit and UK right to work checks, set up step by step