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This article explains the tasks that you can perform in the Compliance tab of the Payroll.

A1 certificate

What are A1 certificates?

An A1-Bescheinigung is confirmation of social security protection in Germany that employees in a European country must carry with them when working on a business trip to certain EU and EEA member states. For more information, read our Help Center article Foreign assignments.

If you have employees in your organization who are planning a business trip within Europe, you, as the employer, must apply for the A1 certificate. With Personio Payroll, you can submit an A1 application and receive an approved form from your authority through the Compliance tab. You can choose from three different types of A1 certificate for your employees: 

A1 application for secondment	Valid for a maximum of 24-month business trips to another participating European country. The duration of the journey must be decided before the start of the work abroad.
A1 application for employment in several countries	Required if employees work in two or more European member states, for example, one day a month, five days a quarter, or more often.
A1 application for an exemption agreement	Required if a person will be working abroad for 24 months or more. Valid for a maximum of 5 years (60 months).

Request an A1 certificate

Step 1: Create the application

1. Go to Payroll > Compliance.
2. Click on New action and choose A1 certificate.
3. Choose the respective option and click Start application to request the A1 form.

Step 2: Fill out and send the application

1. Fill out all mandatory fields for the respective employee. Details marked in gray are automatically taken from the employee profile. You can make any changes to this information in your employee profile.
2. If the information is complete, give your agreement under Employer declaration and click A1 Send request.

Note
Any information that violates the ITSG requirements will result in a warning. Applications with this type of data may result in rejection. The warnings provided are intended to help you with this, but won't prevent you from sending the application if the information is correct. 

Step 3: Receive the A1 certificate

Once you have sent the application and the authorities have received it, you can see whether it has been sent for the respective employee by going to Compliance > All communications. Go to View details to review the certificate and application status. This means that employees can travel with their document, even if their application has not yet been approved.

As soon as the application has been approved, you can view it in Compliance and send it to the respective employee profile. In the case of total or partial rejection, the details are displayed that have not been approved, and you can proceed based on this.

Electronic social insurances audit (euBP) 

What is euBP?

With the euBP, employers can electronically provide relevant company data to the pension insurance audit service before a social insurances audit. The required personnel, payroll, and registration data are transmitted to the pension insurance in standardized data sets. 

Once you have received a letter from the pension insurance, you can use Personio Payroll to create an euBP application and send all relevant data directly to the pension insurance.

Create and submit an euBP application

Step 1: Create an euBP application

1. Go to Payroll > Compliance.
2. Click on New action and choose Social insurances audit.
3. Confirm the legal entity you need to audit and click Next.

Step 2: Fill in the euBP application

1. Answer all the questions shown.
2. If the information is complete, click on Next.

Step 3: Select permanent establishments

From the communication with the pension insurance, you will be able to see which permanent establishments and time frames are checked. This involves the following steps:

1. Choose the relevant permanent establishments to be checked.
2. Select the checked time frame for each permanent establishment.
3. Click Retrieve data.

Step 4: Review and submit data

1. Review the preview of the data.
2. Click Submit. 
3. After the final check, click Submit to submit your data.

Note
Only once all data has been entered can it be transmitted from Personio. Please note that if the time frame of the check starts before Personio Payroll is used, the requested data set is not fully available. In such cases, you can transmit all data from the period before you used Personio to the pension insurance separately via Cryptshare (a third-party provider).

Once the request is submitted, you can view the details by going to Compliance > All communications.

Electronic compensation for reduced income (EEL)

What is EEL?

Employers send electronic remuneration statements (EELs) to health insurers when employees request compensation for a longer time off. This includes the following:

• Maternity benefit 
• Sick pay 
• Child sickness benefit
• Interim payments

Once a longer sickness-related time off timeline has been entered into the Employees' time off tabs, you can submit an EEL application via Compliance > All communications. 

Depending on the time off type in the employee profile, the EEL application will be displayed under All communications in the relevant message for the employee. The EEL is offered based on the time off codes calculated for the time off period. These include the following codes:

EEL 01	EEL 01 Sick pay is displayed when an employee is sick for more than 42 days within a 12-month period.
EEL 02	EEL 02 Child sickness benefit is shown if the time off type Child sick was specified.
EEL 03	EEL 03 Maternity protection is shown if the time off type maternity protection has been specified.

Create and submit an EEL application

Step 1: Create an EEL application

1. Go to Compliance > All communications and click on the relevant employee time off. 

   Note
   If there are several related time off timelines in the employee profile, you will see the Check sickness option. Here you can link the individual time off periods. Then click on Save.

2. Go to the relevant message and then click on the EEL certificate request.

Step 2: Fill in and submit the EEL application

1. Answer all the questions shown.
2. Once you enter all the details, click on Submit.

As soon as the application is submitted, you can view the details by going to Compliance > All communications. The employees' salaries will be automatically calculated on a prorated basis. 

Decline an EEL application

You can also decline an EEL application, for example, if you have already requested an EEL from your previous provider or do not wish to request EELs for a time off for any other reason. This involves the following steps:

1. Go to Compliance > All communications and click on the relevant employee time off. 
2. Open the application for the EEL and decline it using the corresponding button.

The application is now gone from the Reporting tab, and doesn't show again when you make changes to the time off. If you decide that you need it, delete the time off in the employee's profile and add it again to re-trigger the EEL application process in the Reporting tab.

Contribution Estimation

What is the Contribution Estimation?

Employers must send their contribution statement for social security contributions to the collection center by 12:00 AM on the fifth last bank working day of the month. If a monthly salary is calculated based on the hours worked, the exact amounts are not usually available at that time and have to be estimated.

Personio Payroll automatically calculates the expected contribution amount for the relevant payroll month. In the Compliance tab:

• A monthly contribution estimation is created for each subcompany and within the subcompany for each permanent establishment, health insurer and legal entity (East/West).
• You can review and adjust this contribution estimation.
• You can send contribution statements with contribution estimations to the respective collection center.

This contribution statement is sent automatically in the contribution statement when payroll is approved. Only the values that are already entered in the system are taken into account and an expected contribution liability is determined. The balance of the contribution is automatically transferred to the next month's contribution statement.

For further information about the contribution statement, its structure, due dates and the assessment process, please read our article on this topic.

Note:
The contribution estimation function in Personio Payroll only calculates the expected contribution amount for the respective payroll month. The application of the simplification rule is not supported.

Review, adjust and submit the contribution estimation

Note: 
At the time of the approval, as much data (for example, tracked hours) as possible should be available in the system. Employers must ensure their estimated social insurance contributions are as close as possible to the actual amount.

 

Review the contribution estimation

To check the contribution estimation:

1. Go to Payroll > Compliance.
2. Filter for the Contribution estimation category and click on the subcompany and health insurer you want to check.
3. Open and review the contribution estimation for the relevant payroll month.

 

Adjust the contribution estimation

You can adjust the contributions calculated in the contribution estimation by clicking on the respective contribution field. For example, if you expect a certain number of hours worked by the end of the month, you can add them.

Tip:
If you are unsure about the estimated contribution values, please contact your Payroll specialists.

 

Submit your contribution estimation

To submit your contribution estimation, click the relevant button. The contribution statement is automatically sent to the collection center. This also happens automatically when the payroll is approved.

Electronic certificate of incapacity for work (eAU)

What is the eAU?

The eAU is an electronic certificate of incapacity for work (formerly known as "gelber Zettel" (yellow note). It will be automatically requested from the health insurer if:

• the time off type sick leave is the specified category when a time off type is created under Settings > Time off.
• the option I was issued an electronic certificate for this sick leave is selected in the attendance tab of the sick leave request.

For more information on the eAU, read our article on the topic.

Note
As our system has only been up and running since 2024, eAU requests that are more than four years old are not possible.

Status of eAU retrieval

The status of the eAU retrieval can be viewed within the time off tab in the employee profile or under Payroll > Reporting system.

eAU status in the time off within the employee profile 

 

Reporting system 

Different cases can appear in the Reporting system tab of Personio Payroll:

The eAU request has not yet been sent	The system has not yet sent an eAU request to the insurer. This happens within a 5-day period. For the time being, no further action is required by you as the employer.
The eAU data matches	The eAU has been confirmed by the insurer and the details match. In this case, no further verification is necessary. Check whether the eAU has been stored in the time off.
There is no eAU that matches this period.	The health insurer reports back that they do not have an eAU that matches the requested period. Contact the employee and verify that the entered periods of the incapacity for work are correct. Alternatively, the employee can continue to provide their employer with a certificate in paper form.
Wrong health insurer	The health insurer reports back that the employee is not insured with them. Check with the employee to make sure their profile is correct and correct it if necessary.

Delete time off and eAUs

Delete a time off after you have sent an eAU request to the health insurer only in the following cases:

• Incorrect information: When there are errors in the time off or employee data, and you need to correct the information sent to the health insurance provider.
• Pending response: If you have not yet received a response from the health insurer.

Once you have received a definite answer from the insurer (whether the eAU is covered or hasn't been found), you can only delete the time off if the information provided was incorrect.

Please make sure that all information is correct before submission in order to prevent unnecessary deletions.