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

General

Summary

By default, the export of time off 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 time off export allows you to transfer different time off from Personio to DATEV. To ensure that the time off 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 time off as part of the approval process.

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. A new Excel report provides you with a detailed list of the time off that are carried over and those that are not. This report is generated together with the time off export and can be found in the payroll under Documents.

Read on for details on how to set up and use this function and which particular points you need to look out for.

Which time off will be transferred?

The time off export allows you to transfer different time off from Personio to DATEV. For this to work, the time off from Personio have to be assigned to the time off from DATEV. This is done based on the system time off categories in Personio under Settings > Time off > Category. A distinction is made between:

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

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

Time off with direct mapping

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

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

Time off that require additional information (additional questions)

Some Personio time off categories require additional information in order to be assigned to the associated time off 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

Note
The additional information is requested during the time off process via additional questions. See the section on answering additional questions for more information. You can define whether the additional questions are visible to approvers only or also to the employees who submit them. 

Time off that are not carried over

The following time off categories are not supported in the transfer:

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

Answer additional questions

Some time off categories will trigger additional questions as part of the time off process. In this section you will find out what additional questions there are and where submitting employees and approving persons answer them in the time off 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
Read our articles on requesting and approving time off, managing employee roles and access rights for more information.

What additional questions are there?

The following are the questions asked for employees who request a time off and approvers who review them. Approvers always have the option to edit the questions for requesting employees during the approval step.

See the overview of additional questions below:

Submitting time off

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

To learn which questions are displayed to employees, read the section above on time off that require additional information. If you deactivate this option, only approvers or those with edit rights will be able to see and answer additional questions.

Approve time off and edit payroll information

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

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

If the time off 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 how to set up and manage approval processes. 

Mapping Personio time off to DATEV time off

The mapping between Personio and the DATEV time off types is done automatically based on the information provided as additional questions in the time off 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 time off 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 time off data is imported as master data and listed in the following table: Personal data > Employment > Time off.
• DATEV Lohn und Gehalt: The time off 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: Importing Transaction Data
• DATEV LODAS: LODAS ASCII Import

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

 

Setup 

Set up the time off export

To set up the transfer of time off, first enable the display of the Time off tab in the payroll table:

1. Go to Settings > Salary & Payroll.
2. Under Time off types in the Time off tab, select the time off types that you want to transfer.
3. Save your entry.

Select time off categories for the export

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

1. Go to Settings > Payroll > DATEV LODAS Integration.
2. Select a legal entity.
3. Go to the Time off section and check the box as Active.
4. You will see an overview of all supported time off categories with the assigned time off types on the right. If no time off type is mapped, Create time off type is displayed. Activate the time off 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:

• Time off submission: The employee needs the proposal right for time off.
• Approve time off: The employee needs editing rights for time off.

Default setting: The system is set to that additional questions are only displayed when approving time off. 

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

1. Go to Settings > Payroll > DATEV LODAS Integration.
2. Select a legal entity.
3. Go to the Time off section. 
4. Under Time off that require additional information (additional questions), you can activate the option Show additional questions when submitting time off.
5. Save your entry.

Regular use: Sending time off to DATEV

Prerequisites

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

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

Validations for additional information

For time off, the same validation mechanism is used as for validations of attribute values. If the additional questions for time off have not been answered, the employees are marked in red in the preliminary payroll table under the Time off tab. 

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

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

 

Generate DATEV export and send to DATEV

To create the time off 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 Time off.
3. In the Documents window, look for the Time off file. 
   1. If the time off 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 time off cannot be considered (for example, because the time off 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 then send the created export to DATEV. The export automatically goes to DATEV and the person responsible for payroll receives an automatic email notification, if activated.

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

Additional Excel report for time off

When you create a DATEV time off export, an Excel report Time off: Overview is automatically created in the Documents section of the payroll table. This Excel report has two tabs and contains an overview of all time off not transferred automatically, as well as all time off that transferred automatically. Simply forward the Excel report to your payroll accountant so that they can manually enter the time off not transferred into DATEV. 

NoteDATEV LODAS: If the end date of a time off period changes, and you transfer time off again, the time off period will be adjusted in DATEV. No additional record will be added.
DATEV Lohn und Gehalt: Here, time off are considered transaction data. If a second time off 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. 

 

Special features: 

Special features and additional information

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 time off 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 time off 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 time off 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]'.

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 time off 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.

Unsupported cases 

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
  • Time off 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 time off:
  • Two time off types have been created for an overlapping period and therefore cannot be transferred.
• Half days of time off (first half of the day or second half of the day):
  • Half days of time off cannot be transferred to DATEV, only full days.
  • If a time off period only contains a half day, no time off is exported.
  • If a time off 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 time off settings, which will allow the time off to be transferred as full days.
  • We recommend deactivating the half-day request option for unpaid time off.
• Time off types without categories:
  • Time off types that do not include a category cannot be transferred to DATEV.