How to reference another file and move file location - Calc

I’m fairly certain an answer to my problem exists. I have done extensive reading but it appears the solution is just beyond my comprehension. So I apologize if the answer is obvious, I have earnestly tried to answer this myself.

My scenario is this:

I have Calc files containing the data of workdays and pay for up to 15 employees. Each employee has a corresponding file with 12 sheets for each month of the year. Each sheet contains a running balance of pay/vs hours worked. I have created another Calc file that contains monthly sheets with each employee and a cell to reference that running balance total in their individual sheets.

I believe I understand cell referencing in general as I have referenced cells in other sheets comfortably and cells in other files too. My concern is around when I reference cells in another file, the file path I believe is absolute?

My broad concern is what if the file folder containing each employees file is moved or renamed? Or the other file containing everyone’s balance itself is moved or renamed? I have this concern as I attempted a trial run and moving the file folder containing the employee files and it seemed to break the link. Could all these files be moved to another PC and the links stay intact?

I believe the issue is related to something to do with relative paths? My own searching seems to have the answer just out of my reach. I would consider myself possibly intermediate in my Calc knowledge. I have impressed myself in the things I have been able to do, self taught. These gaps in my knowledge are quite frustrating. I keep trying to do more advanced projects but keep hitting these roadblocks. With this in mind please consider making replies in layman terms.

Looking forward to some input.

The file path in external references is always displayed as absolute, but if you didn’t switched off the default enabled Tools → Options → Load/Save → General Save URLs relative to file system option then if you move both the source and the referencing file to another location (with the same positioning relative to each other) it continues to work (and will display the different resulting absolute path).