This article answers the most frequently asked questions about salaries.

Prorated salaries

Why is an employee receiving more money even though their salary was calculated on a prorated basis?

If an employee’s salary seems higher than expected after a prorated calculation, it’s often due to the calculation method set in your payroll settings. One common method is to base the calculation on a standard 30-day month, regardless of the actual number of days in the month.

For example, if an employee’s salary changes during the month (due to a role change, new hire, or termination), Personio calculates the salary for each period separately using this formula:

• Number of days at old salary per month/30 days * sum of old salary + number of days at new salary/30 * sum of new salary = prorated salary 

The method based on 30 days can lead to higher payouts in months of 31 days or lower payouts in February due to the discrepancy between the days of the month and the 30 days used for calculation. For more information on prorated salary calculations, refer to our Help Center article on prorated salary calculation.

Why doesn't my salary get prorated when I insert an absence period?

Inserting an absence period in Personio, regardless of its name or category, doesn't automatically prorate employees' salaries. If you need to adjust the salary of employees based on time off, you need to use the Schedule leave feature. Only absences entered through Schedule leave result in salary proration. For further information, refer to the help center article on the topic. 

How can I pay the full amount for a recurring compensation during a leave period?

Recurring compensation types are automatically prorated when an employee has a leave period. If you want to pay the full amount despite the leave, use a one-time compensation instead. One-time compensations are not prorated during leave and will be paid in full.

Hourly salaries

Why isn't the salary being calculated automatically for my employee with an hourly salary?

For a salary to be calculated based on hours worked, the employee needs to have an hourly salary added in their Salary tab. Additionally, attendances need to be approved if you've configured an approval process. For more information, see the article on managing base salary. 

The salary calculation doesn't work if the employee's contract end date is in the past. For employees with an hourly salary, the system doesn't calculate their salary based on worked hours when their contract end date has passed.

Check the employee's profile for the Contract End date attribute. If this date is in the past, the salary calculation doesn't trigger. To resolve this:

1. Go to the employee's profile.
2. Update the Contract End Date to a future date.

After you make this change, the salary is calculated based on the employee's worked hours.

Recurring compensations

How do I end a recurring compensation?

To stop the regular payment of a recurring compensation in Personio, you need to set the payment amount to 0 at your desired date. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to the employee's profile.
2. Go to the Salary tab and select the recurring compensation you want to stop.
3. Set the payment amount to 0 for the date when you want payments to end.
4. Click Save.

Why is a recurring compensation amount higher than the amount I added?

If you add multiple entries for the same recurring compensation type for the exact same start date, Personio sums up those entries. The recurring compensation for that period will be too high because the amounts are added together instead of accounting only for the last entry. 

This means that you can't overwrite existing entries by simply adding a new entry for the same date, as Personio stores each new entry for the same period in addition to existing ones.

To display the correct compensation amount, follow these steps:

1. Go to the employee profile and open the Salary tab > Recurring Compensation section.
2. Expand the entries to view all compensations for the relevant period.
3. Manually delete the previous, duplicate entries.

After this, the total appears correctly.

Salary reporting

How can I see each employee's salary development over time based on the fixed salary (100%)?

You can see each employee's salary development by using the Classic Report Builder in the Analytics section. Create a Custom Report and use the Historical data report option. This shows the salary development for each employee based on their fixed salary.

Note:
The report doesn't show the absolute value change, but you can download and calculate this directly in Excel.

How can I view salary development for a department over time?

You can use the Report Builder to view salary development for a department over time. Follow these steps:

1. Go to Analytics > Create Report > Compensation.
2. Select the Pro rate gross salary development template.
3. Segment by Department and adjust the time range and grouping as needed.
4. You can also choose different salary attributes, like Gross Salary – Full-time hours, depending on your needs.

How can I see a breakdown of total employee compensation (including base salary, bonuses, etc.) for the past year or by month?

You can create this overview using the Report Builder:

1. Go to Analytics > Reports > Create Report > Blank Report.
2. Select the Table format.
3. Under Rows, add People and select a unique identifier like employee name or ID.
4. Add the salary components you want to analyze (such as Gross Salary – Full-time or Prorated Gross salary and additional compensation types).
5. Set a time range and apply any necessary filters.

Tip:
Use Gross Salary – Full-time to easily compare employees with different FTE values.

Note:
This report does not include unpaid target bonuses or display salary trends over time.

How can I see all stored target bonuses or the maximum achievable bonus for employees?

There's no direct way to report on goal bonus values in Personio reports. However, you can:

• Check the Salary tab in each employee’s profile for stored target bonuses.