Payroll and absences

Where to find it

• Finance → Payroll: create, approve and export payroll runs. Via the gear icon, the Payroll and rule settings with the tabs General, Bonuses, Working time, Vacation, Commission, Export, PDF.
• HR → Scheduling: tabs Vacation planning, Sick leave, Absence for approvals.
• My area → My shifts: this is where employees request vacation, report sick and see their absences. In the app in the Shifts tab.
• The permission "All payroll" also allows creating and changing rules; "View own payroll" shows employees only their own payroll runs, including drafts.

Master data per employee

In the employee file you define what payroll needs:

• Pay type: fixed hourly rate, role-based (rate of the role scheduled on that day, the highest if there are several) or fixed salary (covers all hours, no overtime).
• Employment type (mini job, short-term, part-time, full-time ...) and weekly hours: basis for overtime, vacation pay and continued pay during sick leave.
• Start date: without a start date, the waiting period for continued pay during sick leave does not apply.
• Federal state (otherwise that of the business) for public holidays.
• Hours per day for paid sickness and paid vacation (empty = average, or weekly hours divided by working days).

What counts as working time

Only recorded time is paid. A scheduled shift alone does not count. Sources, in this order in case of overlap:

1. TET report (attendance according to the shift leader)
2. Shift confirmed by TET
3. Clocked time (only completed entries; a forgotten clock-out does not count)
4. Manual entry (in the employee file or under working times)

Non-overlapping times add up. Open, not yet approved clock entries count; only rejected ones drop out. With "Automatic breaks (§ 4 ArbZG, German Working Hours Act)", Unitlify deducts 30 minutes from 6 hours and 45 minutes from 9 hours, unless a break has been recorded anyway; individual employees can be exempted.

Rules in the payroll settings

Overtime arises from weekly hours × monthly factor or, in the mode "Fixed number of hours", from the entered number of monthly hours. If an employee has no weekly hours, the default weekly hours from the payroll settings apply. Bonus minutes are shown separately according to § 3b EStG (German Income Tax Act).

Continued pay during sick leave

Unitlify calculates according to the EFZG (German Continued Remuneration Act):

• Waiting period: 28 days from the start date.
• Duration: up to 42 calendar days per case of illness. Follow-up certificates are counted towards the same case.
• The basis is the scheduled shift of the sick day: what counts is what the person would have worked according to the schedule. That is why it is important to remove the person from the shift in case of sickness instead of deleting the shift. The removed row is kept as the basis; a release shortly before the sick report (within the grace period) still counts too.
• Days without a scheduled shift: if there are other shifts in the same week, it is a day off with 0 hours. Otherwise the hours per day from the master data apply.
• Minutes already worked on that day are offset. Public holidays during sickness run via public holiday pay.
• All sick reports except cancelled ones are counted, including unconfirmed ones. Therefore confirm sick reports promptly or cancel wrong ones.
• With a fixed salary there is no additional payment.

If vacation days fall within a sick report, they are credited back to the vacation account (§ 9 BUrlG, German Federal Vacation Act), regardless of the doctor's note.

Vacation

Entitlement: one vacation entitlement per employee and year, created via "Add entitlement" or automatically: pro rata for the year of entry when inviting, in full at the turn of the year with carry-over of the remaining vacation (up to the maximum). With "Expiry on the cut-off date", the carry-over expires, but only if the notice was sent by email beforehand.

Request by the employee: paid, unpaid, special leave or time off in lieu (deducted from the time account), half days too. Paid vacation requires an entitlement; available is entitlement plus carry-over minus approved and pending days. Overlaps are rejected.

Approval in Vacation planning or the app, with a remark to the employee and an internal note. Approved vacation blocks shift applications and assignments, but does not remove an existing assignment. Employees can also cancel approved vacation themselves.

Vacation pay: hours per day from the master data, otherwise the average of the last three months, otherwise the contractual hours; with the hourly rate or the highest role rate.

Sick leave and absences

Employees report sick under My shifts or in the app: from, to (empty = one day), remark, checkbox "Doctor's note available". An upload of the certificate is not provided; they hand in the original as usual. Free texts are stored encrypted. "Report fit for work" sets the end to today. The employee can only cancel as long as the report has not yet been confirmed. A sick report for someone else can only be created by the person themselves.

Other absences (training, medical appointment, working from home, parental leave, time off in lieu, other) run via the Absence tab with approval.

Month-end close

Create payroll with month, year, optionally location, role and employees, or automatically on the set day of the month. Empty payroll runs are not created.

Status: Draft → Approved → Exported.

• Regenerate only recalculates drafts. Approved payroll runs remain unchanged; for a correction, first "Back to draft".
• Approve requires the permission "Approve payroll".
• Only approved payroll runs are marked as exported. Exported ones cannot be deleted.

Exports: DATEV posting batch (EXTF CSV), DATEV Lohn & Gehalt pre-entry (with absence keys for vacation, sickness, extra work, public holiday; this export does not mark as exported), LODAS transaction data and BMD NTCS (enable both in the export settings), plus the Overview as Excel or PDF with selectable columns and a PDF per payroll run. You set the wage types per category (base pay, bonuses, Gagen, continued pay) in the Export tab.

What the employee sees: with the permission "View own payroll", their payroll runs and PDFs on the web, including in Draft status. There is no payroll view in the app.

Troubleshooting checklist

• Payroll shows 0 hours despite shifts: no recorded time. Use the TET report, clocking or a manual entry.
• Continued pay during sick leave is missing or wrong: start date missing (no waiting period), shift deleted instead of person removed, or sick report cancelled.
• Sickness is paid although unconfirmed: intended, unconfirmed reports count. Cancel wrong reports.
• Public holidays wrong: set the federal state for the business or the employee.
• Change has no effect: payroll run is approved, first back to draft.
• Employees see drafts: only grant the permission "Own payroll" once drafts are finished, or approve promptly.
• Mini job limit missing in the shift application: check the employment type of the employee.