SwissSalary FAQ

The most frequent questions, briefly summarized for you

Here you will find the answers to current topics concerning SwissSalary.

Did you not find the answer to your question? Please contact our support team.


Phone: +41 (0)31 950 07 77
Mail: support@swisssalary.ch

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(except during official holidays)


SwissSalary general

If the Block with DTA File is active in the Payroll Setup, General tab, the Payroll is moved to "unposted" when the ISO file is executed.
If it must still be cancelled, select the relevant Payroll in the view of unposted Payroll runs and choose Reset cancellation Block" under Actions. This causes the Payroll run to disappear from the list of unposted Payroll runs and reappear under "Open". There it can be cancelled as usual via ""Actions"", ""Cancel Payroll"".
Please only do this if no bank payments have been made yet, otherwise incorrect or duplicate payments may occur!"

If this message appears when creating a Test Process Payroll, it means that in addition to the Resignation Date on the Employee card, at least one Resignation Date has already been entered in the payroll list. Please check whether a Resignation date has already been entered for the person concerned on the Employee card via "Employee", "Payroll List" and remove it. If there are several employment periods, these entries and exits must first be removed from the newest to the oldest and then re-entered chronologically from the oldest to the newest.

In list views, such as "Employee active", additional columns can be displayed. This is done via the "Personalize" function, which can be activated via the cogwheel in the top right of the black bar. Then select "+field" at the top left. A list of all the columns that can be shown opens on the right-hand side. The desired columns can be dragged and dropped to the desired position. After the desired columns have been shown, click on "Done" at the top.

If the income Tax cannot be transferred with ELM because the Work permit is missing for an employee, it must be added not only to the Employee card but also to the payroll list. To do this, open the corresponding Employee card, click on the "Employee" tab and select "Payroll list". The Work permit can be added via "Edit list". If the column "Work permit" is hidden, it can be displayed according to "How can I insert new columns in the cloud version?

The error message is usually triggered by the fact that a foreign locality is assigned to the tax municipality or the locality is not correctly linked to the table entries.
The assignment in the Payroll list must be corrected for the tax municipality for the Payroll run that has already been settled. In order to process the data correctly with the next Payroll run, the entry on the Employee card must be corrected. The postcode and City as well as the postcode and town of the Community must always be checked. If a foreign locality is not present in this table, it can be added manually. The place ID is only entered for Swiss localities and can be empty for foreign localities.

#Groupline entries in EasyRapport can be easily deleted by logging in with the Employee login and the password of the admin login. With this combination, the entire line can be selected and deleted. The #Groupline entries occur when the EasyRapport group is changed for employees, but the employees had already reported hours with the old EasyRapport group.

"In order to be able to track changes in SwissSalary, the "Change log" can be switched on.
Under ""Change Log Setup"", ""Setup"", ""Tables"", the tables can be selected for which the change log is to be switched on. To do this, insert the value "All fields" in the columns "Log Insertion", "Log Modification" and "Log Deletion" in the desired tables.

Under ""Change Log Items"" the logged data can be viewed.

The change log is suitable in these areas, for example:
  • Salary types (table 3009099)
  • Employee data (table 9009080)
  • Payroll Setup (table 3009100)


The change log should not be set up in these areas as it would massively slow down SwissSalary:
  • EasyRapport import table
  • Salary Entry
  • Income tax rates

Work at the end of the year

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For employees whose level of employment is not 100% in December, it is printed on the salary certificate automatically. This complies with the swissdec guidelines. Manual additions could be mapped via the two fields available for comments.

An adjustment is made in this regard with SwissSalary Update 5060.000. The specified text is printed if the level of employment in the relevant pay process is greater than 0% but less than 100%. Thus, in the future, the text will no longer be displayed if a level of employment of 0% is stored in the Employee card for persons.

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This text can be found on the corresponding Employee card under the ‘Tax Declaration’ heading

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In the Payroll list, expand the two columns ‘Comments’ and ‘Comments 2’. If there is a text already in one of these columns in the relevant pay process (December or month of resignation), it can be overwritten with the corresponding new text. If the columns are empty, the desired text can be entered directly in these fields.

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Recruitment and resignation data can be adjusted directly in the Payroll list (Pay process header table) (Edit List)

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Check individual insurance domains in the payroll setup. Has the same salary type been assigned to several lines for different person codes for the base salary type or also for the salarywage type?
If so, please contact our support or your Dynamics 365 partner directly for further instructions. 

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In this case, the server of the final recipient (e.g., insurer or withholding tax office) cannot be reached.
Please try ELM submission again later.

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If you notice that individual salary types have been set up with incorrect obligations, make sure to correct them before the next pay process.

Procedure: Journal entry adjustment with the current, incorrectly configured salary type with inverted signs. / Copy the salary type, store obligations correctly and report, settle and post previously booked amount again. 

Both postings can be offset in the same pay process.

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Under ‘Salary declaration - Reports’, you can find all the Reportsthat you must send to different social and/or private insurers at the end of the year.

Most of these Reports can be sent via ELM. You can find out about them in a list in our manual by clicking this link: '2022 / 2023 Year-end Processing’

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The year-end pay process is carried out as the last pay process of the year.

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You can find a detailed description of this matter in our manual by clicking this link: ‘2022 / 2023 Year-end Processing’

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If you want to pay out the accumulated holiday payment remuneration before deadline, you can use the Holiday Payment function in Report journal. For the detailed description refer to our manual by clicking this link: ‘2022 / 2023 Year-end Processing’

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You can find the ‘Close balances’ report via Role Center, Administration

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If you manage time recording in SwissSalary, individual hour values can be closed and set to 0 via Close balances. 
In this pay process, only time balances are closed and no data is transferred to financial accounting.

We recommend closing the balances of work hours, allocated time and actual time (working time calendar) by the end of the year, so that these balances return to ZERO as of January 1 of the new year.
 
If the holiday, overtime and flexitime credits, etc. of your employees expire on December, 31, you can also close these balances (rarely used). Of course, filter criteria are also still available (e.g., individual employees only, Allocation Group ‘MW’ (monthly wage) only, etc.). If negative balances are to be deleted, it can also be done automatically via this process.

After Update 5058.000, both positive and negative hourly balances can be closed. You can also define a positive limit so that only the values exceeding this limit are reduced. The value defined as the limit is therefore retained for the employee as a positive hourly balance. If there is no limit, the hourly balances are set to 0.

For a detailed description refer to our manual by clicking this link: ‘2022 / 2023 Year-end Processing’

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There are two initial situations that must be taken into account:

  • If the salary certificate are still created with Swissdec 4.0, the text does not have to be corrected. The reference to the payment of at least 0.8% is sufficient and is accepted by the tax offices.
  • If you want to adjust the text, the prerequisite is the installation of the latest SwissSalary update (currently 5060.001) and the adjustment of the ELM setup version from 4.0 to 5.0 in the Payroll Setup (Swissdec setup).
If you create the salary certificate according to Swissdec 5.0, the adjusted text will be printed as specified by Swissdec. 

After activating the function "Deduction for Private Use of Company Car" on the Employee card, only the sentence "Private share is paid by the employee" will now appear in the salary certificate under the corresponding remark. A percentage will no longer be printed.

NEW

Are these flat-rate expenses and are there approved expense regulations? If so, only flat-rate expenses may be declared on the salary statement. Other expenses must be suppressed and may not be printed on the salary certificate. 

The relevant instructions can also be found in the FTA's guide to completing salary statements in margin note 54.

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Supplement December 2022: The Swissdec guidelines, chapter 8.2.3.3, provide:
Special case short-time work:
KAE are shown with ELM in item 1 and require the following remark: 'Short-time work compensation in item 1.

NEW

The ELM profile contains all the necessary basic information for accident insurance (UVG), supplementary accident insurance (UVGZ), daily sickness benefits insurance (KTG) and occupational benefits insurance (BVG) so that your company can be correctly identified during ELM transmission. The ELM profile can be requested from the respective insurance company. Additional information can be found here: Swissdec - basic data and insurance profile

13th Payday

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Please remember that the calculation of the 13th Payday is always done in relation to the calendar year. If you have to make corrections for a previous year, do not use this salary type. Otherwise, this amount is included in the calculation of the 13th Payday of the current year.

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In most cases, provision amount for individual employees is not corrected. The difference is usually posted directly in financial accounting. 

If you want to carry out processing in SwissSalary, the differential amounts can be reported and processed manually for the ‘Provision for 13th Payday’ salary type. To do this, use here the ‘A4H salary type list’ report and the two salary types (Standard 1600 & 1610) will be exported using Excel. Add a column ‘Difference’ to Excel and calculate the amount accordingly.
You can import the difference in the provision salary type into the corresponding report journal via Excel import and this way correct the amount using pay process (definite or additional).

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You can disable or enable this information in Absence claim, section 13th Payday Print rate / Quantity.

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  • Are all persons or only one person concerned? If it affects all persons, please check the settings during the calculation and obligations in salary types.
  • Has a Salary code change been processed for the person during the year? Has the change from hourly to monthly salary or vice versa been processed with resignation and re-recruitment? Are both data types reflected in the payroll list?
  • All reports that can influence the calculation of the portion of the 13th / 14th Payday should be recorded prior to the calculation of the 13th / 14th Payday.
  • Salary types (13th Payday paiment ST | Provision for 13th Payday ST) were incorrectly set up in the payroll Setup (base).
  • The corresponding obligation was not stored for the salary types that must be taken into account when calculating the 13th Payday.
  • In the case of refunding of absences stored in the Employee card, the 13th Payday entitlement is not set up correctly.

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SwissSalary supports the calculation and disbursement of the 13th Payday reporting. Six different types and dates should be considered.
For the detailed description of these procedures refer to our manual by clicking this link: '13th Payday Calculation Procedure’

Work at the beginning of the year

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No, OnPrem and Cloud customers have to trigger the updates themselves. SwissSalary will not do this, but can gladly support you. Please directly contact our support.

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No, OnPrem and Cloud customers have to import the most recent data records themselves. SwissSalary will not do this, but can gladly support you. Please directly contact our support.

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Yes, since the 2021 Income tax reform, the rates must be updated every year.

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Click this link to learn about changes to family allowances: EAK Publikationen


If adjustments have been made, the “Adjust child allowances” report would have to be started via the Actions tab in Organization. Check only the boxes for “Post” and “Active employees only”. This way the new records for all children will be overwritten in the payroll setup for all active employees. NOTE: If you have manually adjusted the rates for individual employees (for example due to a margin allowance as a result of the inter-cantonal adjustment), these changes must now be manually entered anew. The report reflecting the changes serves as support. Save it directly during execution, its processing cannot be repeated.

Important:
The “Modify Children Allowance 20xx” report, which would automatically adjust child allowances for all clients, was not delivered for 2023. Please do not execute this report.

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No, OnPrem and Cloud customers have to enter the most recent data records themselves.

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To do this, request the ELM profile from the respective insurance companies.
The data received is stored in payroll setup in the respective domain settings.

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Please note the links below:

 
IMPORTANT: Changes in compensation offices and insurance companies must be recorded on the date of commencement of the contract and the corresponding contract must be selected. With Payroll Process, the origin and the contract code are stored in Salary Entries as ‘Source Domain’ and ‘Source Domain Code’. This is necessary for reporting to the right office. If the new insurer is not available for wage reporting, it was only recorded after the last contract processing had been carried out. As soon as wage items have been processed with the assigned insurance, this insurer is listed in the selection. 
If insurance is only changed afterwards, it is possible that the wage amount will not be transmitted to the responsible insurers. If the corresponding information needs to be adjusted in the Salary entries items, please contact our support or your Dynamics 365 partner. 

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First apply the changes to the new percentages of the employee deductions and employer provisions as well as adjustments to the minimal/maximum wages after the posting of the last pay process of December 2022, however, IMPERATIVELY before the first pay process of the year 2023!

!!Cloud SwissSalary 365: Please note that you must adjust all contributions and maximum limits yourself. You must also import income tax rates.  

IMPORTANT: In each case, check that individual base, wage and salary types are always used for each individual insurance. If salary types are used more than once, correct reports cannot be generated at the end of the year. Depending on the settings, it can also lead to incorrect calculations of limits.

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For the detailed description of these procedures refer to our manual ‘13th Monthly Wage Calculation Procedure’ by clicking this link: '13th Monthly Wage Calculation Procedure’

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You have the option of copying an already created working time calendar for other workgroups.
We recommend opening the first work calendar with the national holidays and copying it (if the target time is identical) to other Working Groups. Subsequently, varying cantonal holidays can be added manually in individual Working Groups.

NEW

As soon as the holidays for the new year are known, both actions can be performed immediately.
For detailed notes refer to our manual by clicking this link:  ‘2022 / 2023 Year-end Processing’

Income tax

As of January 1, 2021, the harmonized Income tax calculation will be introduced throughout Switzerland. All 26 cantons support the new standard and can receive the data electronically (via ELM).

There are now two calculation models (year/month) that include the same (harmonized) calculation bases for all cantons. Up until this moment, each canton has been able to specify its particularities in calculation. Owing to the harmonization, the calculation will be standardized, and this way simplified for all of us (employers, payroll accounting solution manufacturers, etc.). Of course, the change only affects the calculation, and not individual rate levels.

Starting from January 1, 2021, every canton is obliged to redeliver its rates, even if nothing changed compared to the previous year. It is ensured this way that every customer always has correct rates in the system.

Source: Wage Data Processing Guidelines, version 5.0 - Swissdec

Other occupations/substitute sources of income
To make correct withholding tax calculation possible, it must be recorded in the system whether the person continues to work or whether s/he has another occupation of substitute income sources (daily allowances, partial disability benefits, etc.). If the income tax payer (WTP) has other occupations OR receives substitute income, additional information is required:

  • If the total employment rate of all additional occupations and substitute income sources is known, the corresponding percentage is recorded in the system. In the case of substitute income sources, the degree of incapacity to perform duties or disability must be taken into account.
  • If the total gross income (wages subject to income tax) of all additional occupations and substitute sources of income is disclosed by the WTP, it must be converted into a percentage based on the level of employment and the wages subject to income tax.
  • If neither the total level of employment nor the total gross income is known, but the ITP has a level of employment, no additional data is recorded in the system. To calculate the wage subject to withholding tax determined by the rate, the wage subject to the IT is converted to 100% (default value) based on the level of employment. Only the level of employment is transmitted to the IT accounting.
  • If neither the total level of employment nor the total gross income is known and no level of employment can be determined for the ITP, no other data is recorded in the system in addition to the ‘Other occupations’ element. In this case, the wage subject to IT determined by the rate is the median wage according to the withholding tax rate file.

Single-parent family
WT rate codes H, P (for German cross-border workers) and U (for Italian cross-border workers) are used for single people who live in the same household with children or dependent persons and to the main part pay for their living costs (single-parent families).

If the company assigns this code to an employee, additional data must be provided like the indication of whether the WTP lives with his/her partner and has sole or joint custody.

If this information is not provided, the employee will be accounted for using rate codes A or L (for German cross-border workers) or R (for Italian cross-border workers) (WITHOUT child deductions).

Information about the spouse
Less information about the spouse needs to be obtained in the future. We are making a white paper available in 6 languages on our website. Since the ELM submission as of January 1, 2021 will still be made using the previous ELM standard 4.0, there are no changes in data collection in this regard.

Rates D and O (additional income) wil be removed
Income tax rates D and O (for German cross-border workers) become invalid as of January 1, 2021.

Rate F (only the cantons of TI, VS and GR)
Pursuant to the double taxation agreement with Italy, this rate applies to cross-border workers who live in an Italian border municipality and whose partner is employed outside Switzerland. The list of border municipalities is published at www.ti.ch/fonte -> "Imposte alla fonte Applicativo IFonte".

Rates for Italian cross-border workers (only in the canton of TI, daily return to Italy)
There are now rates R, S, T and U for Italian cross-border workers (with daily return to Italy). They correspond to the regular rate codes as follows:

R = (A) Single person without children
S = (B) Married or in a registered partnership with the partner not gainfully employed
T = (C) Married or in a registered partnership with the partner gainfully employed
U = (H) Single person with children (see single-parent families)

Italian cross-border workers that stay in Switzerland for a week will now be accounted for according to rates A, B, C and H.

Yes, there are cantons that only publish IT rates with (Y) or without (N) church tax. When a person is recorded, SwissSalary verifies if a selection can be made in the rates file. You can either check this with the respective canton or retrieve the rates in SwissSalary via the Payroll  Setup. Filter by the canton and the current year, then check whether the rates are listed with and without church tax. Retroactive corrections can be processed during the year via TimeMachine in the ‘Church tax yes / no’ field as of January 1 of the year concerned.

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Yes, with the 2021 IT reform, all cantons must release a rates file every year. They should do this even if no changes were made to the rates. Therefore, please always update IT rates prior to the first pay process and again if a canton makes changes later. This also concerns customers using SwissSalary in the cloud.

If a person is discharged of the income tax obligation, only the Obligation field should be changed. Both the IT canton and the rate information must remain in the Employee card.

According to current standards, the cantons of FR, GE, TI, VD and VS will use the annual calculation model, while the remaining 21 cantons will use the monthly calculation model.

What are the fundamental differences between the two models?

Fiscal period
Month model = month
Year model = calendar year

Wage subject to income tax
Month model = gross monthly income
Year model = gross monthly income

Wage subject to income tax determined by the rate
Month model = gross monthly income
Year model = annual gross income divided by 12

Annual settlement
Month model = not allowed
Year model = mandatory

A check of the applied WT rate-determining wage
Start

Canton with monthly calculation: The rate-determining income is calculated by extrapolating periodic wage values over 30 days and adding aperiodic wage values. All other income sources that must also be taken into account are to be considered.

Canton with annual calculation: The days of employment in the current calendar year are decisive with the annual model, and periodic wage values are extrapolated to 360 days, then aperiodic wage values are added and this subtotal is divided by 12 and as a result converted to one month. All other income sources that must also be taken into account are to be considered.

 

If the entire month is not included as the billing period via From and To dates, an extrapolation is made to determine the rate.

The conversion takes place according to the contractual conditions stored in SwissSalary. Example: One of your employees is employed on a 50% basis and in return receives CHF 5,000.00. If he now earns CHF 1,500.00 working for another employer, but the workload is unknown, then the calculation is as follows:

50 % ÷ 5000 x 1500 = 15 %

In this case, you would enter 15.00 in the “Level of employment at other income sources” field. It will make 65% (50% + 15%) in the calculation of the rate-determining income.

Clarification whether the employee subject to withholding tax is defined as a member of a single-parent family.
Start

NEW

The Swissdec guidelines provide for a calculation of the degree of employment on the basis of the usual working hours. The normal working hours correspond to the value in the field Monthly parts on the Employee card.  The number of hours is decisive for the conversion. Thus, the degree of employment is recalculated for each payroll run. Only the periodic salary types are extrapolated.

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The distinction is basically made according to whether the corresponding salary entries belong to the current period or not. However, this is not defined by SwissSalary. We therefore refer to the Swissdec 5.0 guidelines, specifically chapter 4.2.1. You can find the guidelines here: Swissdec-Richtlinien

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The payment salary type is decisive for taxation and accounting as salary components subject to social insurance. Therefore, the salarye types for the payment must be provided with tax liability, IT liability and social insurance. Any capitalized obligations on resetting salary types must be removed. 

KLE

Documentation

KLE stands for "Customer-integrated Service Process from Claim to Provision"

This new optional Swissdec standard has been under SwissSalary's development as a pilot project starting from summer 2019 and has been piloted with 3 existing customers starting from winter 2019/2020. The pilot customers’ valuable experience was in turn incorporated into guidelines and certification standards.

With KLE, our customers can now create their first accident reports completely digitally from payroll accounting. No additional third-party systems are required. The entire process runs digitally via ELM starting from the damage claim by the employee, accident report and processing through to daily allowance processing in the area of wages.

KLE is available immediately to our SwissSalary Plus customers. SwissSalary is one of the first payroll accounting solution manufacturers in Switzerland to offer this new standard.

The complete SwissSalary KLE functionalities are only available with Release 5058.001 and with SwissSalary Module Plus.

The SUA certificate required for secure data transmission is free and valid for one year.

Swissdec 5.0

Source: https://www.swissdec.ch/de/ueber-swissdec/

Swissdec is a not-for-profit joint project involving several independent partners and the quality label for electronic data exchange between companies and insurers, and authorities.

The services of Swissdec, a centralized information platform for electronic data exchange standardization, include:

  • Swissdec contributes its expertise in standardization
  • Facilitates information exchange between all interested parties like software users, ERP solutions manufacturers, companies, associations, offices and organizations
  • Monitors safe data transmission
  • Certifies successfully tested payslip software

Swissdec 5.0 is the evolution of version 4.0 standards published on January 1, 2013.

Swissdec certification covers the following topics:

  • General section (company data, wage types, evaluations and personal data)
  • Insurance (AHV / IV / EO, ALV, family allowances, UVG, UVGZ, KTG, BVG) as well as daily allowance processing, ceiling insurance wages, payment after resignation, etc.
  • Wage statement
  • Withholding tax (now includes the calculation according to the new Withholding Tax Regulation effective January 1, 2021)
  • Cross-border workers information (new starting from Swissdec 5.0)
  • Statistics from the Federal Statistical Office (so far, wage structure survey only - LSE), additional Swiss wage index - SLI, employment statistics - BESTA, profiling, Company and Business Register update survey - Profiling Light)

The certification has been successfully completed. Numerous conversions were published with SwissSalary Version 5060.000. 
Our cloud customers can switch to Swissdec 5.0 transmission with SwissSalary Quality Release 5060.001. Add the letter 'A' in front of the existing BUR number in the work locations.

The annual reports 2022 can be transmitted with Swissdec 4.0 as well as with the Swissdec 5.0 version. 

We will keep you informed via Yammer (partner) and using information in the Role Center in SwissSalary -> News.