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Import salary data (Implementation)

 

 

This is step 1 of 2 in the implementation module Salaries and Preliminary Payroll.

Once you have configured departments and offices, and have imported your employee data, you can move on to importing your salary data. The assignment of salaries to current, as well as past employees, can be carried out in Personio via an Excel bulk import.

 

What are the benefits?

Importing your salary data into Personio is important as it allows you to do the following:

  • Store all your employees' salary data in one place, without errors.
  • Create one central database for all your salary data, ensuring that everybody knows which data is stored and where to find it.
  • Create transparency and engage your employees by providing direct visibility into salary adjustments, bonuses and one-time compensations.
  • Automatically transfer all salary-relevant data to the preliminary payroll, so that HR simply needs to check and approve.

 

 

Step 1: Configure salary calculations

Before importing salaries, you need to configure how prorated salaries are calculated.

Here you define if the prorated salary of an employee who starts in the middle of the month should be calculated based on the actual days of the month, or if it should always be calculated based on 30 days. This will ensure that the uploaded salary data will be calculated correctly.

To configure the salary calculation, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Settings > Payroll > Salary & Payroll.
  2. Go to the tab General.
  3. In the section Payroll, go to Prorate salary calculation.
  4. Choose between Based on 30 days and Based on days of month.
  5. Then click Save.

For more detailed information on prorated salary calculation options, read our article Prorate Salary Calculation.

 

Step 2: Prepare your import files

Once you have configured your prorated salary calculations, you can start preparing the different import files. We offer four different import files: Salary, Recurring compensations, Custom Bonuses, and One-time compensations. You can download the files in different languages from the download section at the bottom-right of this article.

Note
The language of the import file must match the language of the Personio account. Otherwise, the import will not work. Learn how to change the account language.

 

Salaries 

To prepare your Salary import file, follow these steps: 

  1. Download the Excel template Salary Data Upload from the download section.

    Note    : We recommend re-downloading the Excel template directly from this article before executing each import to avoid using an outdated version.
  2. Open the Excel template and insert the email address for each employee.
  3. In the column Fixed salary, fill out the currently valid gross monthly or yearly salaries, or use the Hourly salary column to fill out the currently valid hourly salaries.

    Note: Do not fill out both columns, as they will interfere with each other's calculations.

  4. Use the column Interval to specify the frequency of the payment. You can choose either Monthly or Yearly.

    Note    : The Interval column is only applicable in the case of a Fixed salary. Any value in this column will be ignored if you enter an Hourly salary.

  5. For each employee, add the date from which the current salary is valid (usually the hire date or the date of the last salary increase).
  6. For each employee, enter the Weekly hours.

    Note    : If this value is left empty, the weekly working hours of the employee's department will be applied by default.

  7. Save the completed Excel file.

Notes for salary imports
▶︎ The salary for part-time employees must be stated in the amount they actually receive.
Example: Carla receives 80 percent of her salary which equals to €3000: this is the amount that should be entered within the Excel file.
▶︎ Employees whose salary should not be imported (for example, former employees) may be omitted from the Excel file.
▶︎ When formatting the cells in the Excel file, make sure that salaries do not have more than two decimals.
▶︎ Performance-based bonuses can be set up separately for each employee. Find more details about Configuring Performance Goals.

 

Add past salaries and weekly working hours (optional)

If, in addition to the current salaries, past salaries and weekly working hours should also be imported into Personio, simply add additional entries for the respective employee in the Excel template and set the corresponding date in the past, in the Valid from field. This allows you to save all of your employees' salary history, and easily track salary changes.

Recurring compensations

It is possible to enter additional recurring salary components for each employee (for example, public transportation subsidy, meal allowances, gym subsidy, internet flat rate, etc.). These can be uploaded through the same method that you used before for the salaries. 

To prepare your import file, follow these steps: 

  1. Download the Excel template Recurring Compensations Upload from the download section.

    Note    : We recommend re-downloading the Excel template directly from this article before executing each import to avoid using an outdated version.

  2. Open the Excel template and insert the email address for each employee.

  3. Create a column for every recurring compensation type that is relevant to you.

    Notes
    ▶︎ Name each column the following way: Salary / description of the recurring compensation type.
    ▶︎ Every recurring compensation type that you want to import needs to be already created within Personio.

  4. Then enter the respective amount for each compensation type.

    Note: To handle deductions, such as pension contributions, you can use negative amounts. Simply place a minus before the amount (for example, -700,00).

  5. In the Interval column, set the payout interval to either monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly.
  6. Now enter in Valid from the starting date from which the compensation has been paid out. Optionally, you can enter under Valid until the date on which the compensation ends. On the specified date, the corresponding compensation will be set to zero. 

  7. Save the completed Excel file.

Note
Before you can import the Excel file, the additional salary components must first be stored in Personio.

To store additional salary components in Personio, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings > Payroll > Additional Compensation.
  2. Click Create New and enter the name of the compensation.
  3. Under Payout Frequency choose Recurring.
  4. Click Confirm.

Learn more about Managing recurring compensations.

Custom bonuses

You also have the option to import custom bonuses. These can be uploaded via the same method as the salaries.

To prepare your import file, follow these steps: 

  1. Download the Excel template Custom Bonuses Upload from the download section.

    Note    : We recommend re-downloading the Excel template directly from this article before executing each import to avoid using an outdated version.
  2. Open the Excel template and insert the email address for each employee.
  3. Under Custom Bonus, enter the respective amount.
  4. Now enter in Valid from the starting date from which the compensation has been paid out.
  5. Save the completed Excel file.

Note
Before you can import the Excel file, the bonus must be created as a salary component for the respective employees. 

To create the custom bonus for your employee, follow these steps

  1. Navigate to the Employee profile and enter the Salary tab.
  2. Under Salary components, click Edit.
  3. Click on Edit/Add bonus, and select Custom bonus.
  4. Choose the Bonus period and when the change is effective from.

Learn more about Managing Bonus Payments.

One-time compensations

You also have the option to assign one-time compensations. Before importing them, you'll need to create one-time compensation types.

To prepare your import file, follow these steps: 

  1. Download the Excel template One-Time-Compensation Upload from the download section.

    Note    : We recommend re-downloading the Excel template directly from this article before executing each import to avoid using an outdated version.
  2. Open the Excel template and insert the email address for each employee.
  3. Enter the One-time compensation Payment type and Amount, an optional Comment, and the Month and Year of the payment.
  4. Save the completed Excel file.

salaries-one-time-compensation-import_en-us.png

Note
Columns that contain numbers should always be formatted as text to be correctly imported in Personio.

Learn more about One-time compensations.

 

Step 3: Import salary data

To import salary data and other compensation types into Personio, follow these steps:

  1. Upload the file: In the sidebar menu, navigate to the section Imports.
    ▶︎ For salaries, recurring compensations and custom bonuses, select the Upload file type Salary Upload.
    ▶︎ For the import of one-time compensations, choose One-time compensation upload.
    Then click Choose file, upload your file, and click Next.



  2. Configure columns: Assign the columns of your Excel file manually to the corresponding attributes stored in Personio if needed. Then click Next.



  3. Preview import: Review your import data in the preview of the import. If you notice any errors, you can simply cancel the import and correct them in the Excel sheet and start with step 1. If the data is correct, click Import.

Learn more about How to perform an import.

Tip
If you experience errors during the import, take a look at our troubleshooting article on imports in the Help Center.

Next steps

 

Congratulations 🎉
You can now move on to Set up your preliminary payroll.