Payroll Preparation

Between the work done and the finished payroll lies an often underestimated intermediate step: payroll preparation. Every month hours have to be gathered, surcharges calculated, benefits in kind and one-off payments captured, and all of it prepared so the accountant can settle it cleanly. This very step eats time and produces endless queries when it runs unstructured. Payroll preparation makes it traceable.

The tool is a satellite of the HR Management suite and lives off its data. The hours from time tracking flow straight into payroll preparation instead of someone retyping timesheets. On that basis you capture the variable pay components: surcharges for Sunday, holiday and night work, benefits in kind like the company car or fuel vouchers, and one-off payments such as holiday or Christmas bonuses.

Before anything is exported, the tool computes a gross-net preview. So for each employee you see roughly what comes out and spot errors - a forgotten time entry, a wrongly captured surcharge - before they land in the real statement. No more surprises when the payroll comes back from the accountant.

At the end comes the export. Payroll preparation delivers the prepared data in the formats German payroll offices expect: LODAS and DATEV. Your accountant gets clean, structured data instead of a chaotic spreadsheet or notes, and the number of queries drops noticeably. That is the real point of payroll preparation - taking the friction out between the business and the payroll office.

To be perfectly clear on scope: this is preparation, not a payroll system. Payroll preparation does not create social-security filings, no ELSTER wage-tax return and no legally binding payslip. Those steps stay with the accountant or payroll office, who carry the responsibility. The tool prepares the data and hands it over - no more than that, but exactly that, done well.

Payroll preparation is part of the HR Management suite and requires the Pro tier. Whoever opens it lands directly in the HR office, where time tracking, the personnel file and payroll preparation mesh together. This creates a continuous path from recorded working time to an export-ready payroll file, without media breaks and without double maintenance.