# External employees

> **You need:** *Employees — edit*.

An external employee is a **contracted driver who is part of your own fleet** — someone who delivers for you but is not on your payroll.

## The distinction that matters

Three kinds of driver, easy to confuse:

| | What they are | Managed |
|---|---|---|
| **Internal driver** | Your own staff | Here, as a normal employee |
| **External / contracted driver** | Contracted, but part of your fleet | **Here** — this page |
| **Third-party carrier** | A delivery company you hand orders to | Not here — [External carriers](/books/console-yF7/page/external-carriers) |

The middle one is the one this page is about. A contracted driver is still **your fleet**: the dispatcher assigns them individually, by name, exactly as it does your own staff. A third-party carrier is a company — you hand it the order and it picks the courier.

If you are setting up a courier platform, you are in the wrong place; go to [External carriers](/books/console-yF7/page/external-carriers).

## Creating one

Create the external employee against the brand, then set their hub and driver configuration as you would for any driver — see [Editing an employee](/books/console-yF7/page/editing-an-employee).

## How the dispatcher treats them

Contracted drivers rank **below** internal drivers. When both could take an order, the internal one wins, and an internal driver can take an order away from a contracted one — never the reverse. The full ranking is in [Driver classification and priority](/books/console-yF7/page/driver-classification-and-priority).

Two consequences worth knowing:

- **A zone that doesn't list their type will never give them work.** Empty allowed-driver-types on a zone blocks all own drivers, contracted included — see [Delivery zones](/books/console-yF7/page/delivery-zones).
- **A store with no internal drivers is treated more leniently.** Its own-fleet delay tolerance is automatically replaced by the third-party value, so an all-contracted store isn't held to a standard it can't meet — see [Store delivery settings](/books/console-yF7/page/store-delivery-settings).

## Adding several at once

Use the CSV import rather than creating them one at a time — see [Importing and exporting employees](/books/console-yF7/page/importing-and-exporting-employees).

## Related pages

- [External carriers](/books/console-yF7/page/external-carriers) — third-party delivery companies, which are not this
- [Driver classification and priority](/books/console-yF7/page/driver-classification-and-priority) — how types rank
- [Delivery zones](/books/console-yF7/page/delivery-zones) — which driver types a zone permits