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Note that this article is only relevant for you if your company is located in Germany.

Best Practice Payroll Procedure for Accountants: Setup and Payroll With the DATEV Integration

In this article, you will learn which steps you as an accountant need to take to set up and authorize the DATEV integration for your clients. We will also take you through an example process for the monthly payroll. 

Tip:
If you have any questions or require support with regards to ordering or setup of the payroll programs, you can book an appointment with the DATEV Partner Onboarding Team as soon as possible.

Before you get started

Once your client has ordered the integration from Personio, carry out the following steps in order to book the relevant services for DATEV LODAS or Lohn und Gehalt and set up the integration. Make sure you have the necessary rights for the payroll-relevant areas in Personio:

Step 1: DATEV product order

  1. Open the client overview in DATEV.
  2. Start the MyDATEV client registration.
  3. Log in via SmartCard or SmartLogin.
  4. Product: Order the Lohnimportdatenservice.
  5. Product: Order the Lohnauswertungdatenservice.
  6. Product (optional): Order the Lohnaustauschdatenservice in order to use automatic eAU retrieval via DATEV. Click here for further information on setting up the DATEV integration.
  7. Register client or add new client.
  8. Complete the order.

You can find detailed instructions on the process in DATEV in this DATEV Help Center article: Order and set up DATEV Cloud Solutions for clients via MyDATEV Mandantenregistrierung

Step 2: Activating accountant access

  1. Open access management online
  2. Open the Employee tab

  3. Select employee and SmartCard

    Please note:
    If you want to set up the Lohnimportdatenservice, you need to activate additional rights for the DATEV user when using a communication server (DFÜ profile i the network).

  4. Select Lohnimportdatenservice, Lohnauswertungsdatenservice and Lohnaustauschdatenservice (to use the eAU retrieval service) and add the access authorization
  5. Enter advisor and tenant ID

You can find detailed instructions on the process in DATEV in these DATEV Help Center articles:

Step 3: Authorization in Personio (client task)

This step must be carried out by your client. Please provide your client with the advisor ID and the tenant ID. The client also needs a SmartCard or Smartlogin. The authorization procedure is explained in detail in the article Setting Up the DATEV Integration. 

Step 4: Setting up external account access

Ideally, your client sets you up in Personio as an external employee and grants you access rights for all payroll-relevant areas of Personio, as explained in the article How Do I Set Up an External Profile for an Accountant in Personio? You can discuss with your client which authorizations you will need and have them set up accordingly. This allows you to review the data during the month and to make any adjustments that are necessary or desired directly, as well as being able to view documents and create exports.

Step 5: Support during data reconciliation

The prerequisite for a smooth payroll process is to carefully maintain the quality of the data in Personio from the very beginning. Using the DATEV interface transforms Personio into the leading system in terms of up-to-date data, for which your client is responsible. Help your client with the initial data harmonization between DATEV and Personio (for example with the DALY export).

Tip:
Further information on prerequisites and steps for self-booking clients is available in the following article in the DATEV Help Center: MyDATEV client registration for companies: Get your DATEV cloud applications up and running.

Payroll with DATEV and Personio

Below you will find a rough outline of the monthly payroll process with DATEV and Personio. You can find further details and the individual steps within Personio in the article Monthly Payroll With the DATEV Integration in Personio.

Please note:
If the data has not been reconciled between DATEV and Personio by the end of the setup process, please do so together with your client before the first payroll month and update the data in each system as necessary.

Data transfer and preparation of payroll

Employee master data, absences, fixed salaries, hourly salaries, one-time and recurring compensations are transferred via the Lohnimportdatenservice directly from Personio to the DATEV data center as an ASCII file and then uploaded by you to DATEV. Get further payroll-relevant data from the preliminary payroll directly in Personio and/or the Excel export and make the data changes in DATEV.

Tip
Visit the DATEV Help Center to find out how to call up the transferred data in the DATEV data center and feed it into your salary system.

Carrying out the payroll

Carry out the payroll in DATEV as per usual.

Uploading payroll-relevant documents

Once the payroll is complete in DATEV and the payslips and all other payroll-relevant documents are available (if applicable, after a 5-day lockout period), your client is able to import these documents from DATEV into Personio using the Lohnauswertungsdatenservice and transfer them to the respective employee profiles.

Process and tasks at a glance

Task Who? In which tool? When?
Maintaining the current master and transaction data Client Personio Ongoing
Review of data changes Client/person responsible for payroll accounting (as agreed) Personio – preliminary payroll Ongoing, at the latest before the data is given to the accountant
Payroll approval Client Personio Agreed deadline

Export of data to DATEV via interface

 

Export fixed salaries to DATEV via the interface

 

Export hourly salaries to DATEV via the interface


Export of one-time compensations to DATEV via interface

 

Export of recurring compensations to DATEV via interface

 

Export absences from DATEV via the interface

 Client/person responsible for payroll accounting (as agreed) Personio Agreed deadline
Provision of transaction data Client Personio – preliminary payroll/custom reports if applicable Agreed deadline
Review of and additions to data and carrying out of payroll Accountant/person responsible for payroll accounting DATEV/Addison/SBS/etc. Agreed deadline
Retrieval of payroll-relevant documents Client Personio As soon as the documents are provided
Upload of documents (if they are not provided via DATEV) Client/person responsible for payroll accounting (as agreed) Personio As soon as the documents are provided
Review and distribution of documents Client Personio After the upload/import of documents into Personio

Download additional attributes from Personio

For payroll-relevant attributes that you cannot transfer to DATEV via the export: You can manually export them from Personio and upload them to DATEV at a later stage. You can find these in the payroll table in the Payroll section.

Downloading employee documents

All employees have their own document area. Once documents have been imported via the Lohnaustauschdatenservice and then distributed, this is where the evaluations (such as payslips) end up. To download the documents for a specific employee, for example work contracts, go to their profile and click on the Documents tab. Here, you will find all their documents organized by category. Click on Download for the document you require.

Please note:
To download a document, you will need editing rights for that document.

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