Book the salaries from other payroll software
Do you run the payroll in other software (bexio, Abacus, Swiss21, an Excel file…) but keep your books in To Bill? Import that software’s payroll journal every month. To Bill checks that it adds up, then books a single balanced salary entry for the month.
Before you start
- Accounting is turned on and your books are open. See Turn on accounting.
- You have the right to manage the accounts: the journal contains each employee’s salary.
- Export the month’s journal from your payroll software as CSV, one row per employee. An Excel file can be saved as CSV from Excel (Save As › CSV).
- If you run the payroll in To Bill’s Payroll module, do not import anything: the payroll already books its entry. See Run the month’s payroll.
Import the month’s journal
Open Accounting › Payroll. The page is called Monthly payroll.
Drag the file into Import the payroll journal, or click to choose it. CSV, 2 MB at most, separated by semicolons, commas or tabs.
Leave Column format on Automatic. To Bill recognises the usual headers of Swiss payroll journals in German, French and Italian (AHV, ALV, NBU, BVG, FAK, QST, Nettolohn…). Only choose a specific format if a column is not recognised.
If the file has no period column, choose the Month. The Entry date is the last day of the month by default: enter the payment date instead if you know it.
To Bill reads the file and shows the preview. Nothing is booked yet.
Check the preview
The preview shows the file’s state, the number of employees, the Gross salaries, the Net salaries paid, the entry date, each employee and The entry that will be booked, line by line.
| State | What to do |
|---|---|
| Ready to book | Check the entry, then book it. |
| To fix | The journal does not add up: review the flagged rows in your payroll software, export again, then click Read the file again. |
| Accounts missing | An account that is needed is not in your chart of accounts. Tick Add these accounts from the Swiss SME chart, then book, or open the chart of accounts. |
| Already booked | This file is already in your books: nothing to do. |
| Month already booked | Another file for this month is already in your books. To replace it, reverse its entry in the journal. For an additional payroll run for the same month, tick This is an additional run for the same month (bonus, correction): book it as well. |
How To Bill checks the journal
On each row, the net paid must equal the gross, plus family allowances and expenses paid back, minus the employee’s deductions, to the centime. A Total row at the bottom of the file is read as a control total: it must equal the sum of the employees, and it is never booked as an employee. If a single row does not add up, nothing is booked.
Then click Book the payroll for … (1). The entry is booked in the journal, and the original file is kept as the voucher.
Where the amounts go
| Account | What goes there |
|---|---|
| 5000 | Gross salaries and allowances |
| 5700 | The employer’s social charges: OASI and unemployment insurance, family allowances, occupational pension (BVG), accident insurance (UVG), daily sickness allowance (KTG) (or their sub-accounts 5710 to 5740, if they exist in your chart) |
| 5800 | The expenses paid back |
| 2270 | The debts to the OASI fund, the family allowance fund, the pension fund and the insurers (or the sub-accounts 2271 to 2274) |
| 2279 | The tax at source withheld |
| 2210 | The other deductions |
| 1020 | The net salaries paid, from the bank account in your accounting settings |
Months already imported
Under Months imported, each import shows its entry (Entry no. …, or Reversed) and the Original file button, which downloads the file as you imported it.
The To Bill template
Does your software not export a journal per employee? Click CSV template and fill it in: one row per employee, with the period, the gross, each employee and employer contribution, the family allowances, the tax at source, the other deductions, the expenses and the net paid.
Legal basis
- Books and accounting vouchers are kept for ten years: Art. 958f CO. The imported journal is the voucher for the salary entry.
- The notes to the accounts state the debts to pension schemes: Art. 959c para. 2 no. 7 CO. If the occupational pension debt shares account 2270 with other insurers, the preview flags it.
- The solidarity contribution to unemployment insurance (AC2) has been abolished since 1 January 2023: OASI leaflet 2.08 (German version: there is no English one). A journal for 2023 or later that contains it is flagged.