This article explains how you can transfer time off to DATEV via the DATEV integration. 

By default, the export of absences is activated for all users of the DATEV integration and can be transmitted to DATEV via the export function in the preparatory payroll accounting. A number of default settings have been made for you to enable the export directly. You can adjust these settings in your payroll settings at any time.

The absences export allows you to transfer different absences from Personio to DATEV. To ensure that the absences from Personio are correctly assigned to the corresponding time off in DATEV, the system-side time off categories must be stored in Personio for your individual time off types. Furthermore, you will need to enter additional information for some absences as part of the approval process.

Unpaid absences are calculated on a prorated basis according to your settings. You can see the prorated salary in the profile, in preliminary payroll, and in reporting. The DATEV export displays the full salary, since the salary adjustment for unpaid absences is calculated directly in DATEV.

If any additional information is missing, validation errors will be displayed in the preliminary payroll. This allows you to enter missing information before the payroll run and thus include time off in the export to DATEV. An Excel report provides you with a detailed list of the absences that are carried over and those that are not. This report is generated together with the absences export and can be found in Payroll under Documents.

Before you get started

To use the DATEV integration, you or the person responsible for payroll accounting must have the appropriate access rights. Before downloading the team calendar to DATEV, please note the following information and carry out the necessary setup steps:

Which absences will be transferred?

The absences export allows you to transfer different absences from Personio to DATEV. For this to work, the absences from Personio have to be assigned to the absences from DATEV. This is based on the system-defined absence categories in Personio under Settings > Time Off & Attendance > Absences > Category. A distinction is made between:

• Absences that can be directly transferred.
• Absences that require additional information to determine the associated DATEV absence.
• Absences that are not supported and therefore cannot be transferred.

For details on how to assign absences from Personio to DATEV absences, see below.

Absences with direct mapping

The following Personio absence categories are assigned 1:1 to a DATEV absence and can be transferred directly:

• Paid vacation (DATEV Lohn & Gehalt only)
• Unpaid vacation
• Unexcused absence (unpaid)
• Irrevocable exemption
• Sick leave

Time off that require additional information (additional questions)

Some Personio absence categories require additional information in order to be assigned to the associated absences in DATEV. The following categories are affected and will trigger additional questions: 

• Maternity protection or parental leave
• Child care
• Family care
• Other paid leave
• Strike/Lockout
• Public tasks

Time off that is not carried over

The following absence categories are not supported in the transfer:

• Short-time work
• Quarantine
• Work remotely
• Unpaid suspension
• Other absence categories  

Answer additional questions

Some absence categories will trigger additional questions as part of the absence process. This section explains where submitting employees and approvers answer these questions in the absence process.

Note
The visibility of additional questions depends on the employee's access rights. You can define whether the additional questions are visible to approvers only or also to the employees who submit them. To learn more, refer to the section Setting the visibility of additional questions and note the system's default setting.

Tip:
For more information, see our articles on requesting and approving absences, managing employee roles, and access rights.

Submitting absences

If you select the Show additional questions with absence requests option in the DATEV settings, employees will be able to answer additional questions for different absences in the absence entry. Users with edit rights for the absence will be able to review and edit the information provided as part of the approval process. 

If you deactivate this option, only approvers or those with edit rights will be able to see and answer additional questions.

Approve absences and edit payroll information

Once employee absences are submitted, they can be revised in the calendar by the approver/person with edit rights. As soon as the employee clicks on the absence, the Absence details window opens. 

Depending on access rights, they will see the option Edit payroll information. When you click, the absence details window opens with further additional questions. The additional questions that are shown in the request and when editing absences are also displayed. Once the additional questions have been answered, the approval can follow.

If the absence is approved, it will then be displayed in the payroll table and can be sent to DATEV by the person responsible for payroll via the export function. 

We recommend setting up a specific approval process (if there isn't one) so that additional questions can be reviewed by approvers/persons with editing rights before they are transmitted to DATEV. This helps to prevent any potential error messages in the payroll table. Read our article on setting up and managing approval processes. 

Mapping Personio absences to DATEV absences

The mapping between Personio and the DATEV absence types is done automatically based on the information provided as additional questions in the absence request. In the case of sickness, the allocation is based on the hire date and the first days of employment. See below for details on how questions and answers in Personio are used to assign the data to DATEV:

Where do the transmitted absences end up in DATEV? 

Once the export is sent to DATEV and retrieved from the data center, the data can be accessed in the following tables in DATEV:

• DATEV LODAS: The absence data is imported as master data and listed in the following table: Personnel Data > Employment > Absences.
• DATEV Payroll: The absence data is imported as transaction data and listed in the following table: Calendar entry.

For further information about administration in DATEV, please read the DATEV help articles on the topic:

• DATEV Lohn und Gehalt: Import activity data
• DATEV LODAS: LODAS ASCII-Import

Note
An existing DATEV template (transaction data (standard)) is used to import absences into DATEV Lohn und Gehalt. If your payroll manager has adjusted this template, the data import from Personio may have error messages. If this is the case, your payroll manager can download the template again in the sidebar of the article to ensure a successful import.

Set up the absences export

To set up the transfer of absences, first enable the display of the Absences tab in the payroll table:

1. Go to payroll > Manage.
2. Under payroll data, select the absence types you want to transfer.
3. Save your entry.

Select absence categories for the export

The export of absences is activated by default for all users of the DATEV integration. To select absences for export, follow these steps:

1. Go to Payroll > Manage > DATEV LODAS/Wages and Salaries. 
2. Select a legal entity.
3. Go to the Absences section and check the box as Active.
4. You will see an overview of all supported absence categories with the assigned absence types on the right. If no absence type is mapped, Create absence type is displayed. Activate the absence categories that you would like to transfer to DATEV. 
5. Save your entry.

Set the visibility of additional questions

The visibility of additional questions depends on the employee's access rights:

• Submit absences: The employee needs the proposal right for absences.
• Approve absences: The employee needs editing rights for absences.

Default setting: The system is set so that additional questions are only displayed when approving absences. 

Individual settings: You can individually specify that the additional questions are also visible to employees when submitting absences. 

1. Go to Payroll > Manage > DATEV LODAS/Payroll.
2. Select a legal entity.
3. Go to the Absence section. 
4. Under Absences that require additional information (additional questions), you can activate the option Show additional questions when submitting absences.
5. Save your entry.

Special features, additional information, and product restrictions

Product limitations

The following cases are not supported. Check with your payroll accountant, as manual adjustments may be necessary: 

• Payroll period overlaps change of legal entity:
  • The billing period corresponds to the full billing month
  • Absences were submitted from 12.06. to 17.06. for review.
  • The subcompany was changed on 15.06.
  • As a detailed view of the company change cannot be viewed within the month, a transfer is not supported.
• Overlapping absences:
  • Two absence types have been created for an overlapping period and therefore cannot be transferred.
• Half days of absence (first half of the day or second half of the day):
  • Half days of absence cannot be transferred to DATEV, only full days.
  • If an absence period only contains a half day, no absence is exported.
  • If an absence period contains full days and further half days, only the full days are sent to DATEV.
  • If you want to send half days to DATEV, a manual adjustment will be necessary. However, you have the option to disable the half-day request in the absence settings, which will allow the absences to be transferred as full days.
  • We recommend deactivating the half-day request option for unpaid absences.
• Absence types without categories:
  • Absence types that do not include a category cannot be transferred to DATEV.

Sick leave

• There are more cases in DATEV than the cases supported in Personio. However, these can only be set in DATEV.
• For the sick leave absence category, Personio exports the continued remuneration with and without a sick certificate to DATEV, depending on whether this is required. 
• For DATEV Lohn und Gehalt, no certificate status is transferred from Personio to DATEV due to DATEV restrictions. You will need to set the certificate request manually in DATEV, as the default information on the export is "CK".
• In case of sick leave from the first day of hire (sick day = hire date), Personio transfers the absence to DATEV LODAS as 'Sick entry without continued remuneration [47]', and to DATEV Lohn und Gehalt as 'Sick entry without continued remuneration [RK]'. 
• In the case of sick leave between the 2nd and the 28th work day after hire (hire date < sickness date < 29 days after hire date), Personio transfers the absence to DATEV LODAS as '(Daily) benefit for sick leave or treatment [41]' and to DATEV Lohn und Gehalt as 'Sick leave with (daily) sickness benefit entitlement. [K6]'.
• Actual, code [K6] cannot be sent for long-term illness without continued payment of wages, which is why this must be entered manually in DATEV as soon as the continued payment of wages for employees ends due to long-term illness.

Child care

• The information Child Number must be entered manually in DATEV, as this function does not support the correct transfer. The data is imported, but DATEV shows a warning that this value still needs to be filled out manually.
• Personio cannot transfer the Care for critically ill child information to DATEV Lohn und Gehalt. In this case, the absence is transferred as 'Sick child with daily sickness benefit [PK]'. This then needs to be adjusted manually in DATEV.
• The child sickness benefit is a benefit that the employee receives directly from their health insurer.

Prorated salary calculation for unpaid absences

Unpaid absences will be calculated prorated according to the company-specific calculation settings. The prorated salary is displayed in the Salary tab in the employee profile, in the preliminary payroll accounting table, and in reports.

Note
Please note that the full salary is shown in the DATEV export, as the salary adjustment for unpaid absences is calculated directly in DATEV.

The following table shows all absence categories and corresponding additional questions that trigger prorated calculation:

Tip:
You can find out how to view and edit additional questions in the section above.

Important information on salary calculation in the event of absences

If an absence category is not linked to DATEV, no additional questions will be asked. In this case, no prorated salary calculation is performed, regardless of which absence category was selected. There is an exception for the following absence category:

• If maternity leave or paternity leave is added and the employee's gender is male, a prorated salary calculation is performed—regardless of whether additional questions are asked or not.

Please note that removing an absence type from a category has no effect on past absence periods. This means that the salary for these past periods of absence will continue to be calculated on a prorated basis, during which change requests were still mandatory.

Send absences to DATEV

Prerequisites

The following requirements must be met for the export of absences to work:

• You have enabled absences in the DATEV settings for the relevant subcompany.
• You have activated the absence category that the absence is assigned to in the DATEV settings.
• You have assigned the absence to an absence category.
• You have filled out the mandatory DATEV attributes for your employees.
• The absence has been approved.
• The absence is supported by the export.
• If required, you have answered the additional questions for absences. 
• The absence falls within the current payroll period (start, end or the entire absence period).

Validations for additional information

Just like the validation of attribute values, the same validation mechanism is used for absences in the team calendar. If the additional questions regarding absences are not answered, employees are marked in red in the "Absences" tab of the preliminary payroll table.

Select the absence type and answer the additional questions. Otherwise, the absence will not be considered for the export. Absences with open validations do not block the general export of all absences, but the open absences are not included in the export.

Note
When you use the absences export for the first time, you are likely to see some validation errors. This is because the data on absences that fall within the payroll period and require additional information has not yet been provided. The additional questions only become visible once the absences export has been activated.

Generate DATEV export and send to DATEV

To create the absences export and send it to DATEV, follow the next steps:

1. Go to the payroll section and select a legal entity or, if available, an accounting group.
2. Open the Generate export drop-down and click on Absences.
3. In the Documents window, look for the Absences file. 
   1. If the absences still have validation errors due to missing additional information, a warning will be added here so that you can answer the additional information prior to transferring the data. 
   2. If some absences cannot be considered (for example, because the absence category is not supported, is disabled, or belongs to the category of unsupported cases), a note is shown next to the export file. 
4. By clicking the Documents tab, you can send the created export to DATEV. The export is automatically sent to DATEV and the person responsible for payroll will receive an automatic email notification, if activated.

Note
Note that when using DATEV Lohn und Salary, an additional export of the previous month generates if the payroll period is in the middle of the month (e.g. 15th to 14th). Both exports must be sent to DATEV. 

Additional Excel report for absences

When you create a DATEV absences export, an Excel report Absences: Overview created. This Excel report has two tabs and contains an overview of all absences not transferred automatically, as well as all absences that transferred automatically. Simply forward the Excel report to your payroll accountant so that they can be manually enter the absences that have not been transferred into DATEV. 

Note
DATEV LODAS: If the end date of an absence period changes and you transfer absences again, the absence period will be adjusted in DATEV. No additional record will be added.
DATEV Lohn und Gehalt: Here, absences are considered transaction data. If a second absence export is created and sent to DATEV within a payroll month, DATEV does not update the previous monthly value but creates an additional entry. Your payroll accountant can configure the settings in DATEV so that transaction data is overwritten. To learn more, read the DATEV help article on the topic.

Export after the end of the month 

You can create the export after the previous month has ended (for example, you can create an export for June even if it is July). This gives customers more flexibility in completing their payroll, especially those whose payroll period corresponds to the calendar month. This function is available for all DATEV exports.