This article explains how you can automate and easily run your monthly payroll with our DATEV integration with LODAS and Lohn und Gehalt. You can also read our general article on the topic.

How Does Monthly Payroll With DATEV Integration Work?

If you have the DATEV integration activated, after completing the preliminary payroll in Personio, you can transfer data to DATEV using the Lohnimportdatenservice and then import relevant documents into Personio using the Lohnauswertungsdatenservice. You can transfer the following data using the integration:

Your payroll accountant also requires information on other salary components and employee documents. These must also be made available and sent to the accountant via an export of the preliminary payroll, so that they can enter them manually in DATEV. 

Tip:
▶︎ We recommend that you give your payroll accountant access to your preliminary payroll via a Personio profile so that they can pull this data themselves.
▶︎ If you rehire former employees, you can use the rehire feature and transfer all employee data from the inactive employee profile to the new one. Read about what you need to consider in connection with the DATEV integration when rehiring former employees. 

Before you get started

In order to use the DATEV integration, you or your payroll accountant need the appropriate access rights.

The Monthly Payroll Procedure With DATEV Integration

Check data

Go to the Payroll section and select a subcompany (if available). Check the flagged data changes for each employee in the People, Personal info, Salary, Absences, and Employee changes tabs. Click the relevant employee for more details on data changes.

Tip
Validations flagged in red will help you amend many of the DATEV attributes. General attribute changes are flagged in orange in the payroll table.

Approve payroll

Click Approve payroll and confirm the approval in the pop-up window. The payroll table will be frozen and an export "Excel file" containing all the currently available data will be created.

Create export for personal data, fixed salaries and recurring compensation and send to DATEV

1. Click Generate export > LODAS/Lohn & Gehalt > Personal data, Fixed salaries, Recurring compensation.
2. Confirm the export by clicking on Generate Export.
3. In the Documents tab, you can then send the generated export to DATEV. The export automatically goes to DATEV and the person responsible for payroll receives an automatic email notification, if activated. 

Notes
▶︎If you use payroll groups, the DATEV exports for each payroll group will need to be exported individually during preliminary payroll and transferred to DATEV. You can find out what needs to be taken into account in our article Using Payroll Groups With the DATEV Integration. 
▶︎ Once an employee's employment relationship has ended and they are, thus, considered terminated, they will not be included in the DATEV export from the accounting month that follows the termination, and their data will not be sent to DATEV.

Tip:
▶︎ Visit the DATEV Help Center for information on how your payroll accountant can feed the export file into DATEV. Refer to LODAS ASCII Import (Fenster) for LODAS and to Select file from the data center for import for Lohn und Gehalt.
▶︎ You can create the export after the previous month has ended (for example, you can still create an export for April in May). 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.

Create a DATEV export for one-time compensations and hourly wages and send it to DATEV

1. Click Generate export > LODAS/Lohn & Gehalt > One-time salary, Hourly salaries.
2. Confirm the export by clicking on Generate Export.
3. In the Documents tab, you can then send the generated export to DATEV. The export automatically goes to DATEV and the person responsible for payroll receives an automatic email notification, if activated.

Tip:
You can also create the export after the previous month has ended (for example, you can create an export for April even if it is May). 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.

Create a DATEV export for absences and send it to DATEV

1. Click Generate export > LODAS/Lohn & Gehalt > Absences.
2. Confirm the export by clicking on Generate Export.
3. By clicking the Documents tab, you can then send the generated export to DATEV. The export automatically goes to DATEV and the person responsible for payroll receives an automatic email notification, if activated.

Send further information to your payroll accountant

Download the "Excel file" export created in step 2 under Documents and send it to your payroll accountant together with any other payroll-relevant documents (such as sickness certificates). 

Tip:
If you approve the payroll before the end of the payroll period, the Excel file and the DATEV export will not yet contain all the payroll-relevant data (such as absences or working hours that were approved later). To send the updated data to your payroll accountant, create another Excel file and, if necessary, another DATEV export. If they have access to Personio, they can pull this data themselves. For a summary of the process on payroll accountant's side, see the corresponding Best Practice article.

Finish payroll in DATEV

Your payroll accountant enters all information into DATEV that the integration doesn't cover. As soon as payroll accounting in DATEV has been completed and relevant documents have been generated, your payroll accountant will let you know. 

Import and check the documents

1. Go to the Payroll section and select a legal entity (if available).
2. Click the Documents tab within the payroll table. Here you can retrieve the documents. 
3. The employee-related documents are assigned to the employees via the DATEV Personalnummer. Under the Personal info tab, click on the corresponding employee column to view and check a preview of your employees' individual documents. For further information, see our article on importing documents via the Lohnauswertungsdatenservice.

Distributing Documents to Employees

Once you have checked the documents, you can distribute the imported documents from DATEV to your employees from the Documents tab in Payroll. These can then be found under Documents > Payroll.