A summary of the most frequently asked questions in Support

SwissSalary FAQ

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Mail: support@swisssalary.ch

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(except during official holidays)

13th Payday

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’

  • 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.

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

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).

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.

Work at the end of the year

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

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.

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.

If you create the salary certificate according to Swissdec 5.0/5.51, 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, the sentence "Private share is paid by the employee" will appear in the salary certificate under the corresponding remark.

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:  ‘2023 / 2024 Year-end Processing’

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

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:  ‘2023 / 2024 Year-end Processing’

You can find a detailed description of this matter in our manual by clicking this link:  ‘2023 / 2024 Year-end Processing’

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

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:  '2023 / 2024 Year-end Processing’

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.

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.

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. 

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

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.

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

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.

Work at the beginning of the year

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’

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.

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’

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.

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. 

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

SwissSalary Direct

The time during which an employee can still access SwissSalary Direct after resignation can be defined in the "Global Settings" of Direct. During this period, the employee continues to be considered registered and will be taken into account for billing purposes.

If an employee has a new email address and cannot access the old one and is therefore unable to reset the password independently, you can log into Direct with the administrator credentials and unregister the employee concerned with the “Unregister” button. After the synchronization of Direct in SwissSalary, the employee can re-register. The registration code remains unchanged and the already uploaded documents are preserved. 

If an employee works for several companies, s/he can log in with his/her usual username and password and enter the registration code of the second company via “User Settings”. After that, s/he can switch between the two companies as follows: 

This error message appears if the customer admin password is incorrect. It can be reset if the customer has access to the email. The password in SwissSalary must then also be changed. SwissSalary Direct must be then synchronized. If there are several companies under the same subdomain, the password must be changed in all clients.

This means that the employee probably already exists in another client. If the “Access denied” message appears, the employee should be able to enter another registration code in the upper right corner via User Settings under “Enter Registration Code”. The registration in the old client can only be reset after the employee has logged in and out with his/her new access data.

This message means that email verification could not be carried out successfully. Either no email address is recorded in the Employee card or nothing was defined in the “Electronic delivery” field. Check this information on the employee’s Employee card, complete it and carry out a synchronization with SwissSalary Direct. The employee can then register again.

If the registration code is not displayed for an individual employee, it is worth checking the translation of the additional text and the language code in the Employee card (DEU/FRA/ITA instead of the correct code DES/FRS/ITS).

A text can be entered in the "Text block for registration" field under Administration, SwissSalary Direct in the Role Center, which is printed on the payslip together with the registration code. As soon as the employee has registered for SwissSalary Direct, the text is no longer displayed on the payslip. If the additional text is added by mistake in the Options during paycheck creation, then the text with the registration code will appear for all employees, including those that are already registered. Delete the additional text for paycheck and only store it in the SwissSalary Direct setup.

If the account is blocked, but the employee has successfully registered and the email address has been confirmed, this is probably because of multiple attempts to log in with an incorrect password. In such a case, you should test if the login works in another browser. If this is not the case, the employee can be unregistered by the admin user so that s/he can re-register.
To see how you can unregister employees, follow this link:

This notice can appear with direct delivery / file delivery. In this case, you need to check whether “Document” is selected in the “Document Type” column in the “SwissSalary Document Management Setup” table. You can find the table in the top right corner via search.

In the Role Center in SwissSalary, Administration, SwissSalary Direct under "Reports" you can find the "Registration Codes". The registration codes can be filtered here per employee, department, allocation group, etc.

In some cases, documents already sent via Direct can no longer be deleted in the dossier. This is because the document type is locked for deletion. To temporarily change this, search in the top right corner for “SwissSalary Document Management Setup”. You can change the status of the relevant document type from “locked” to “unlocked” in the “Delete document” column.

Documents already sent via SwissSalary Direct can be deleted in SwissSalary. To do this, click in the Role Center on Administration, SwissSalary Direct. There you will find the Documents section under the “Related” tab, in which all sent documents are displayed and can be deleted individually. After their deletion, SwissSalary Direct must also be synchronized for the document no longer to be displayed to employees.

Employees can change their passwords themselves by clicking the “Forgot your password?” button on the login screen. After entering the correct email address, they will receive a link via email to confirm the new password. This link is valid for a short term, so the employee should confirm the new password as soon as possible.

If an employee has a new email address, it should ideally be changed as follows: S/he logs in with the old email address and saves the new email address in the settings under “Change user name”. Only then HR changes the email address in SwissSalary in the Employee card and synchronizes SwissSalary Direct. Email verification only takes place during registration and is no longer needed after successful registration.

If required, email address verification can be enabled in the global settings in Direct. It is checked whether the email address used by the employee to log into SwissSalary Direct matches the email address in the employee’s personnel card. If this is enabled, either “Private email” or “Business email” must be selected in the “Electronic delivery” field in the Employee card. In addition, the selected email must be entered in the Employee card. This conformity check is an additional, though not compulsory, safety criterion.
If no email address was stored or nothing was selected in the “Electronic delivery” field, the employee will receive the message: “Your account has not yet been activated. Please try again later or contact your HR team.” In such a case, an email address must be stored or a selection must be made in the “Electronic delivery” field and then synchronization must be run. If the email address is changed in the Employee card, SwissSalary Direct must also be synchronized afterwards.

SwissSalary EasyRapport Documentation

In this case, the listed salary type is generally blocked or blocked for the employee's salary code. Important! As soon as an error message appears when retrieving EasyRapport Entry, the data has only been imported up to this data record. Only when the message appears that "Total X items written to the journal", are all items really available for this reporting journal.

This message is generated for various reasons:
  • The entry date of the employee concerned is in the future.
  • The password entered is incorrect. -> This can be regenerated via 'Forgot password'. For this purpose, the person concerned receives an e-mail with a predefined password. Attention! If there is a company e-mail address on the employee card, the e-mail will always be sent to this address. Even if the private e-mail address is used as the user name.
  • The e-mail address is incorrect. -> Please check whether the e-mail address on the employee card is spelled correctly.

It is possible to use the company switch. You can find a detailed description in our EasyRapport Manual.

The same data can be used for all clients of a customer. The EasyRapport transfer works per client. The client name is also checked to ensure that the synchronized items are sent to the correct client.

These are salary entries of a blocked dimension. They cannot be imported and the import is canceled. Please contact the person responsible for the cost center so that arrangements can be made as to what should be done with these entries. The current entries in the import journal must be deleted so that the 'Get EasyRapport entries' step can be executed.

This means that the listed language is not available in SwissSalary. At least German, French, Italian and English must be entered for the EasyRapport transfer. You can add the missing language using the search term “Languages”. 

No. To record time stamps via RFID key, all you need is a device with an Internet browser and an RFID reader

Receipts can also be entered in EasyRapport. The possible file types are .pdf.jpg.jpeg.png.tiff.gif.bmp

Yes, this setup is possible

EasyRapport cannot perform a check based on defined specifications and therefore cannot issue an error message. 

The release can be made per day, per reporting line or per month

Yes, that is possible

No

No

The method Amount of Installmentst. With this method, all time data is always billed on a monthly basis. 

Yes, this works. However, the password on the Employee card must not be deleted for those persons with admin login. 

To ensure that employees can only log in via SSO, the password on the Employee card must be deleted in the EasyRapport tab. 

Use the admin login to check whether the settings “Activate time stamping” and “Show daily repeat” are set to “YES”. 

Check whether the EasyRapport group is still assigned on the employee's personnel card. The TapBoard is based on this assigned group. 

In the EasyRapport section on the Employee card, the EasyRapport Group, Login and Password fields must be filled in. 

Log in to EasyRapport with your admin login. Click on the “gear wheel” at the top right. Under “Reporting”, click on “Yes” for “Show daily reporting”. The incoming/outgoing blocks are then displayed. 

To do this, go to the relevant EasyRapport group. In the report types, you will find the columns Upper limit / Lower limit. If these are not shown by default, you can show them using “Personalize”. Now enter 0.1 for Upper limit and 1 for Lower limit in the line to be blocked. The line is locked for entry in EasyRapport by entering it crosswise. Then start the EasyRapport transfer. 

Check in SwissSalary on the employee's card whether the “Supervisor” is stored in the EasyRapport tab. The supervisor is the person who is authorized to enter time data in EasyRapport. Normally, this is the personnel number of the employee himself. However, it can also be a line manager. 

The #Groupline entries are created when the EasyRapport group is changed for employees, but the employees had already reported hours with the old EasyRapport group. #Groupline entries in EasyRapport can be easily deleted by logging in with the employee's login and admin password. Before you delete the entries, check what the entries were. With this combination, the entire line can be selected and deleted. After deletion, enter the data in the correct Groupline. Check the reporting journal during the next payroll run to see if these times are still available. 

The EasyRapport card shows the time data before the payroll run. The reporting card shows the billed time data after posting the payroll run.

This message can have various causes. The most common are that no workgroup has been assigned on the employee card when a new employee joins or that the unit fixed value is missing on the workgroup. 

Check the employee's card to see which working group has been assigned. Search with the search term “Work calendar” in SwissSalary. Select the relevant Work calendar and click on “Write carry forwartd absence” - Actual calendar. This action causes the holidays to be reported in advance in the system journal according to the Allocation Group in accordance with the Work calendar. Then start the EasyRapport transfer. The holidays should now be visible.

Check all the employee cards. In the field Employee Visa or Employee Visa by Proxy the character |is present in the list of several employee numbers, but no number follows. 

This means that no valid language code is stored. You can add the missing language using the search term “Languages”.  

For SwissSalary itself, changing the Employee No. is possible without any problem. This is because SwissSalary works with the ID of the Employee card. EasyRapport, on the other hand, is linked to the Employee No. Please contact SwissSalary support before changing the Employee No.

SwissSalary cannot establish a connection to EasyRapport. Please contact your NAV/BC partner or SwissSalary support.

Yes, this works. To do this, go to the EasyRapport setup and click on Auto-Sync activated. This will open the task queue where you can set up the appointment series for automatic transfer. 

Open the report journal containing the time data. Click on Related, Function, Print EasyRapport card. Select the desired month end and delete the filter on the N° employee. The system now generates the time statement based on all the time data in all the reporting journals. 

Via Role Center via TapBoard/EasyRapport - Groups you can access the EasyRapport groups. There you will also find the fields Accounting authorized from/to. Make the desired changes and carry out the EasyRapport transfer. You can carry out the transfer directly on the EasyRapport group. 

This posting period shows from which start date to which end date entries can be made in EasyRapport. It is advisable to adjust the start date accordingly for the definitive payroll run and to close the entry period to be settled. 

Never delete the time data from the reporting journal. Otherwise, the deleted time data can only be retrieved by resetting the synchronization date. The time data all have a document date. This means that they would only be taken into account in the respective payroll month. The times can therefore remain in the reporting journal without any problems. If you have any further questions, please contact your NAV/BC partner or SwissSalary support. 

Check whether you have executed the action in the correct reporting journal. One reporting journal can be defined per EasyRapport group. If you have several EasyRapport groups with different defined journals, you must retrieve the EasyRapport items for each reporting journal. 

The data from EasyRapport is temporarily stored in this table by the EasyRapport transfer. During the transfer to the EasyRapport import table, there is no plausibility check as to whether the salary type entered may be recorded by the employee. The data from this table is only imported into the Management Rapport Journal and checked during the "Get EasyRapport Entry" action. If a salary type is blocked, for example, it cannot be imported into the reporting journal. A corresponding error message appears. 

This establishes the connection between SwissSalary EasyRapport and SwissSalary. It enables the import of time data from SwissSalary EasyRapport. If you post the times to cost centers, cost units or projects, these become visible through the transfer to SwissSalary EasyRapport. The personal data of employees is also synchronized so that, for example, changes in the level of employment take effect in SwissSalary EasyRapport. 

SwissSalary general

The reason is that the Paychecks are locked for deletion. In the SwissSalary document management setup, you define whether the Paychecks are blocked for deletion or not. These can be set to “not blocked” in the setup and the payroll run can therefore be canceled.

"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 card (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

#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.

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.

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?

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 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.

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!"

KLE Documentation

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Income tax

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.

If the end of the withholding tax liability is due to the receipt of the permanent residence permit (C), the date can be entered in the corresponding field. It will then be taken into account in the transmission.

In the cantons of GR, TI and VS, IT Tariff "F" is no longer valid as of 01.01.2024 and therefore no longer applicable. Please check the rates of your employees and if you have employees subject to withholding tax in the cantons of GR, TI and/or VS,  it is mandatory to set the correct rate  before the first salary is settled in January 2024.

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

Important: Please also note the distinction between “old” and “new” cross-border commuters. See the instructions from the Canton Ticino withholding tax office informazioni-sullimposte-alla-fonte.

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. 

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

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.

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.

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

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.

 

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Swissdec

If you receive an error during a salary report, e.g:

"The transmission has been rejected because the document has been sent by a non-certified transmitter or has not been signed",

the Default values must be restored in all clients. To do this, proceed as follows:

  1. Payroll Setup
  2. Domain Setup
  3. Swissdec Setup
  4. ELM
  5. Restore Default Values

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

The certification has been successfully completed. With the SwissSalary Version 5060.000 numerous implementations have been published. 
Our Cloud customers can switch to the transmission with Swissdec 5.0 starting with the SwissSalary Quality Release 5060.001. To do this, go to Payroll Setup - Domain Setup - Swissdec Setup - then select edit and change the version from 4.0 to 5.0. Also, complete the BUR number in work locations by adding the letter 'A' before the existing BUR number.

From version 5063.000 (spring 2024), salary declarations from SwissSalary can be made using the Swissdec 5.0 or Swissdec 5.1 standards. 

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

Statistics

Transmission with Swissdec 5.0 requires the latest SwissSalary version (at least 5060.002).

Transmission with Swissdec 5.0 requires the latest SwissSalary version (at least 5060.002).

If submitting with Swissdec 4.0, the deadline for submission is March 31, 2023; those submitting with Swissdec 5.0 will do so monthly.

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