Run the month’s payroll

Every month, To Bill calculates one payslip per employee in service. Everything can be corrected until you finalise. Once finalised, the payroll is locked and gives the payslips, the payment file and the salary entry.

Before you start

• Your insurance is entered and your employees are up to date. See Enter your social insurance and Add and manage your employees.
• For employees paid by the hour, have their hours for the month to hand.
• Months are done in order: finalise the previous month before this one.

Compute the month

1. Open Payroll. The page lists your payrolls, the most recent at the top. Next payroll shows the month to do.

   

2. Click New payroll (1), choose the Month, then click Compute.

3. The payroll opens as a Draft. Each employee in service during the month has their payslip in it.

At the top of the Payroll page, notices remind you of what is waiting: an employee’s exit to finish, expenses to pay back to your employees. Open takes you there.

You can search and filter payrolls by month, by state (draft or finalised), by gross or by amount paid, in the bar above the list.

Read the checks

At the top of the payroll, four figures: Gross salaries, To pay, Employer contributions and Cost for the company. Below them, the Checks (1):

Level	What it means
Blocking	The payroll cannot be finalised: a piece of data the law requires is missing. For example the hours of an employee paid by the hour, their hours per week, a tax at source rate, a contract, or an amount to pay of zero.
To check	The payroll can be finalised, but take a look: no OASI number or IBAN, a net salary that changes by more than 20%, a tax at source rate not checked for the year, an allowance below the cantonal minimum.
Note	An explanation: month paid pro rata, unemployment insurance ceiling reached, employee working fewer than 8 hours a week, accounts kept elsewhere.

Click an employee’s name in a check to open their record. As long as a point is blocking, Finalise (2) stays greyed out: “Fix the blocking points (in the employee's file or in the month's inputs), then recompute: only then can the payroll be finalised.”

Enter the month’s hours and variables

1. In Payslips, click the employee. Their payslip opens on the right.

2. Under This month, enter what changes this month (1):

   

   Entry	What it does
   Hours worked	For an hourly wage only: hours × hourly wage, plus the holiday supplement.
   Overtime	An amount in CHF, which you calculate yourself according to the contract. Subject to contributions.
   Bonus	An amount in CHF. Subject to contributions; shown separately on the salary certificate.
   Actual expenses, Flat-rate expenses	Paid back with the salary, without contributions. At year-end, you state where they go on the certificate.
   Other deduction and Reason for the deduction	Deducted from the net: advance paid back, wage garnishment, rent…

3. Click Save and recompute, at the bottom of the payslip. The payslip and the checks update. The arrows at the top of the payslip go to the next employee.

Does an employee’s data need correcting, such as their hours per week or their IBAN? Correct it in Payroll › Employees, come back to the payroll, then click Recompute.

The month’s absences

Under each employee in the Payslips list, the payroll shows their absences of the month recorded in Time › Absences, by reason, for example “Sickness: 2 d” or “Military or civil service: 5 d”. This is information to check the payslip: To Bill does not reduce the salary for unpaid leave and does not compute the income compensation (EO/APG) or the daily allowances for sickness or accidents. See Your team’s absences.

Family allowances

The allowances in the employee’s record are paid with the salary. They are added to the gross salary on the payslip, but are subject neither to OASI nor to accident insurance (UVG). For an incomplete month, they are paid in full: check the fund’s decision.

Finalise

1. When no blocking point is left, click Finalise.

2. Choose the Payment date: it dates the payslips and the entry. By default, the 25th of the month.

   

3. Check the amount To pay, then click Finalise.

To Bill recalculates the payroll one last time. If a figure has changed since you reviewed it, for example because an employee’s record was edited in the meantime, it refuses: “The data changed since the last computation: recompute the payroll before finalising it.”

Once finalised, the payroll is Locked: its payslips no longer change. You can then:

• download the payslips: Payslips (PDF). See Payslips;
• create the payment file: Payment file. See Pay the salaries.

A finalised payroll can no longer be edited, reopened or deleted: a mistake is corrected with a correction run (see below). A draft, on the other hand, can be deleted with the bin icon, Delete the draft: its entries for the month are erased.

The month an employee leaves

The payslip of an employee leaving this month includes their final pay: holidays paid at exit, overtime, bonus, deductions, each with its rule. It is settled on the employee’s Exit page. See When an employee leaves.

Correct a finalised month

A forgotten bonus, a salary entered wrongly, a wrong tax at source rate: the finalised month stays as it is, and a correction payroll (Correction run) calculates the difference between the month as it should have been and what was paid, social insurance and tax at source included.

1. In Payroll, click Correction run.

2. Choose the Month to correct, tick the Employees concerned and enter the Reason: it is printed on the correction payslip, for example “March bonus forgotten”. Click Create the correction.

   

3. The correction opens as a draft, with Correction no. 1 and its reason. Open the employee’s payslip: under The month as it should have been, enter the month’s correct amounts, not the difference. For example Bonus: 800. For a different salary or rate, Correct monthly salary or Correct tax at source rate; if empty, the contract is kept.

4. Click Save and recompute. Under Differences, each line shows what was Paid, what is Due and the Difference.

   

5. Finalise the correction like a payroll. It is booked (one difference entry) and paid with a payment file, like a payroll.

At the top of the correction, Gross salary difference, Difference to pay, Employer contributions difference and Cost difference sum up the correction. If the correction lowers a salary already paid, To recover from the employee shows what they must give back. Add an employee and Remove change the employees in the correction as long as it is a draft. Only one correction in draft per month.

A payment after an employee has left, for example a bonus decided later, is also made with a correction of the exit month: Payment after exit, on the employee’s payslip.

The salary entry

If the accounts are kept in To Bill, the payroll books an entry when it is finalised: One balanced entry for the month, dated on the payment date. The draft already shows a preview of it, under Salary entry.

Account	What goes there
5000	The gross salaries
5700	The employer’s social charges: OASI and unemployment insurance, family allowances, occupational pension (BVG), accident insurance (UVG), daily sickness allowance (KTG)
5800	The expenses paid back
2270	The debts to the OASI fund, the family allowance fund, the pension fund and the insurers
2279	The tax at source withheld
1020	The net salaries paid, from your bank account

The entry bears the reference SAL- followed by the month. Open the entry shows it in the journal; the payroll is its voucher.

• The accounts are not kept in To Bill: the payroll says so (Books elsewhere) and books no entry. Pass the payslips on to your fiduciary.
• Entry not booked: for example because a salary entry for this month is already in the books, imported from other software. The payroll stays finalised. Fix the cause, then click Book again.
• The pension fund debt shares account 2270 with other insurers: the payroll flags it, because the notes to the accounts must show this debt separately. Give it its own account in your chart of accounts.

Legal basis

• The employer gives the employee a written salary statement: Art. 323b para. 1 CO.
• Payslips are accounting vouchers, kept for ten years: Art. 958f CO.
• The employer deducts the employees’ contributions from the salary and pays them over with its own: Art. 14 para. 1 AHVG, the Federal Act on Old-Age and Survivors’ Insurance (German version: fedlex has no English one); Art. 66 para. 3 BVG, the Federal Act on Occupational Old Age, Survivors’ and Invalidity Pension Provision (German version); Art. 91 para. 3 UVG, the Federal Act on Accident Insurance (German version).
• The notes to the accounts state the debts to pension schemes: Art. 959c para. 2 no. 7 CO.