Hiring new employees comes with a lot of paperwork — especially employment contracts. Manually drafting, personalizing, and sending each contract takes time, increases the risk of errors, and slows down the onboarding process.
What if you could generate accurate, customized employment contracts automatically — directly from your hiring spreadsheet? That’s exactly what Active Merge enables HR teams to do.
By connecting a contract template with your employee data in Google Sheets, you can auto-create hundreds of contracts in minutes. And with our Zapier integration, you can even automate sending those contracts to new hires, cutting hours of manual work.
In this post, we’ll walk through the complete step-by-step process to streamline contract generation using Active Merge, Google Sheets, and Zapier.
Why Manual Employment Contract Creation Holds HR Back
HR teams often struggle with contract creation because:
- Time-consuming manual edits: Filling in each contract with names, roles, start dates, and salary details is repetitive and slow.
- Error-prone processes: Typos or missing information can lead to confusion or legal risks.
- Inconsistent formatting: Multiple versions or edits cause tracking challenges.
- Scaling difficulties: As hiring ramps up, manual contract prep becomes unsustainable.
Automating contract generation helps HR teams avoid these pitfalls, improve accuracy, and onboard employees faster.
What Is Active Merge?
Active Merge is a cloud-based document automation platform designed for professionals who create personalized documents at scale. HR teams can:
- Upload a contract template (Microsoft Word .docx)
- Add employee data via spreadsheet
- Automatically generate customized contracts for each employee
It’s secure, easy to use, and integrates with Zapier for fully automated workflows.
Step-by-Step: Auto-Generate Employment Contracts with Active Merge
This section walks you through the exact process of setting up document automation for employment contracts. Whether you’re onboarding ten new hires or fifty, these steps will help you generate customized contracts at scale—using your own hiring spreadsheet, a pre-built contract template, and automation tools like Zapier.
Step 1: Create an Active Merge Account
Start by creating your free account at https://activemerge.com.
After signing up, you’ll be able to:
- Upload contract templates (DOCX, PDF, PPTX)
- Generate secure API keys
- Connect with Zapier, WordPress, or custom apps
- Monitor and manage document generation activity
Step 2: Build Your Employment Contract Template in Google Docs
- Open Google Docs and create a new document for your standard employment contract.
- Add dynamic merge tags using curly brackets ({ }) for any data you want to personalize—like employee name, start date, salary, etc.
Example Template:
| This Employment Agreement is made between {EmployeeName}, residing at {Address}, and XYZ Company. Job Title: {JobTitle} Start Date: {StartDate} Annual Salary: {Salary} Work Location: {Location} Reporting Manager: {ManagerName} This agreement is effective as of {StartDate}. Sincerely, HR Department |
- When finished, go to File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx) and save the file.
Don’t have a contract template? Visit Active Merge’s Free Templates section to download pre-built legal documents that you can customize.
Step 3: Upload the Template to Active Merge
- Log in to your Active Merge dashboard.
- Go to the Templates tab and click Add Template.
- Upload your .docx file.
- Click Detect Placeholders—Active Merge will identify all your {fields}.
- Confirm the fields and give your template a name (e.g., “Employment Contract Template”).
Important: The placeholder names (e.g., {EmployeeName}) must match your spreadsheet headers exactly.
Step 4: Prepare Your Hiring Spreadsheet in Google Sheets
Create a Google Sheet to store the data of each new employee. Each row should represent a new hire, and each column should match a placeholder in your template.
Example Spreadsheet:
| Employee Name | Address | Job Title | StartDate | Salary | Location | Manager Name | |
| Ben Marcelino | 100 Wall Street, NYC | Legal Consultant | 2025-09-01 | $85,000/year | New York | Angela Lopez | benmarcelino@email.com |
| Jermaine Kim | 22 Maple Ave, Brooklyn | Legal Analyst | 2025-09-24 | $75,000/year | New York | Angela Lopez | jer.kim@email.com |
| Charles Angeles | 55 Elm St, Manhattan | Legal Counsel | 2025-10-15 | $90,000/year | New York | Angela Lopez | charles.ang@email.com |
Tips:
- Use clear, exact column headers
- No spaces or special characters in header names
- Match each column name to your template fields
Step 5: Generate an API Key in Active Merge
You’ll need an API key to connect Active Merge to Zapier.
How to do it:
- In Active Merge, go to API Keys in the sidebar.
- Click Generate New API Key.
- Copy and save the key securely (you may not be able to view it again).
Step 6: Set Up the Zap in Zapier (Trigger + Action)
This is where you connect Google Sheets and Active Merge to automate document creation.
Set Up Google Sheets as the Trigger
- Go to Zapier and click Create a Zap.
- Select Google Sheets as the trigger app.
- Choose the trigger event: New Spreadsheet Row.
- Connect your Google account.
- Select the spreadsheet and worksheet where your hiring data is stored.
- Test the trigger—Zapier should pull in a sample row.
Set Up Active Merge as the Action
- For the Action step, choose Active Merge.
- Select the action: Generate Document.
- Paste in your API Key if prompted.
- Choose the template you uploaded earlier.
- Set the file format: choose PDF for finalized contracts.
- Map each placeholder to the corresponding spreadsheet column:
| {EmployeeName} → EmployeeName
{Address} → Address {JobTitle} → JobTitle {StartDate} → StartDate {Salary} → Salary {Location} → Location {ManagerName} → ManagerName |
- Test the action to generate a sample contract.
Step 7 (Optional): Automatically Save Contracts to Google Drive
If you want to store a copy of each contract:
- Add another Zapier step.
- App: Google Drive
- Event: Upload File
- File: Select the output file from the previous Active Merge step.
- Destination: Choose a folder like /Employment_Contracts.
Step 8 (Optional): Email Contracts to Employees Automatically
To send the contract to each employee via email:
- Add a new Zapier action.
- App: Gmail (or your email platform)
- Event: Send Email
- “To” field: Select the Email column from the spreadsheet.
- Subject: “Your Employment Contract from XYZ Company”
- Attachment: Use the document from the Active Merge step.
- Body:
| Hello {EmployeeName}, Please find attached your employment contract. Let us know if you have any questions. Welcome to the team! – HR Department |
Step 9: Turn On the Zap
Once testing is complete:
- Click Publish in Zapier
- Your automation is now active
From this point on, every new row you add to your spreadsheet will trigger a contract to be created, saved (optional), and emailed to the new hire.
Real-World Example: Bulk Hiring Automation
A healthcare provider needed to onboard 40 new nurses across multiple locations. Using Active Merge and Zapier, their HR team:
- Uploaded a single contract template
- Pasted employee info into a spreadsheet
- Generated and emailed all contracts within 15 minutes
They saved dozens of work hours and eliminated manual errors during peak hiring season.
Ready to Automate Your Employment Contracts?
Don’t let manual contract prep slow your hiring down. With Active Merge, you can generate professional, error-free employment contracts in minutes — automatically — every time you add a new hire to your spreadsheet.
Try our Make.com automations as well and tell us which one fits better your workflow.
Why HR Teams Choose Active Merge for Employment Contracts
- Eliminate repetitive manual edits
- Reduce errors and ensure consistent formatting
- Automate contract delivery to new hires
- Easy-to-use, cloud-based, and secure platform
- Supports DOCX and PDF templates
- Integrates seamlessly with Google Sheets and Zapier
Get started today at Active Merge and transform your HR document workflows.
