This article explains how you can automate and easily run your monthly payroll with our DATEV integration with LODAS and Lohn und Gehalt. Also read our article to find out how the preliminary payroll for using the DATEV integration works.  

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 via 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.  

The Monthly Payroll Procedure With DATEV Integration

Step 1: Check data

Go to the Payroll section and select a legal entity (if available). Check the flagged data changes for each employee in the People, Personal info, Salary, Time off, 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.

Step 2: Approve payroll 

Click Approve payroll and confirm the approval in the pop-up window. The payroll table freezes and an export Excel file containing all the currently available data generates. 

step 3: DATEV- 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. By clicking the Documents tab, you can then send the created export DATEV. The export automatically goes to DATEV and the person responsible for payroll receives an automatic email notification, if activated. 

Notes
▶︎ If you use accounting groups, the DATEV exports for each accounting group will need to be exported individually during preliminary payroll and transferred to DATEV. You can find out what to consider in this step in our article Using Accounting 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 for those whose payroll period corresponds to the calendar month. This function is available for all DATEV exports.

step 4: DATEVexport for one-time salaries and hourly wages create and send to DATEV

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

Tip
You can 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 the payroll, especially for those whose payroll period corresponds to the calendar month. This function is available for all DATEV exports.

Step 5: Create a DATEV export for time off and send it to DATEV

1. Click Generate export > LODAS/Lohn & Gehalt > Time off.
2. Confirm the export by clicking on Generate Export.
3. 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.

Step 6: 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 don't contain all the payroll-relevant data (such as time off 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 the part of the person responsible for payroll, see the corresponding Best Practice article.

Step 7: Finish payroll in DATEV

Your payroll accountant enters all information into DATEV that the integration doesn't cover. They let you know once payroll has been completed in DATEV and the relevant documents have been created. 

Step 8: 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.

Step 9: Distribute 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. You can find these can under Documents > Payroll.