Payroll report: collect the month, check it, hand it over
Most small companies do not run payroll in their HR tool. Someone still has to tell the accountant or payroll provider what changed this month. HR FLARE collects it, checks it and exports it, and leaves the calculation where it belongs.
Can an HR tool prepare payroll without running it?
Yes. The payroll report collects every change that matters for the month, lets HR add or correct lines, approves it and exports it as a file your payroll provider can import. HR FLARE does not calculate wage tax or social security, files nothing and pays nobody.
In short
- The report is an optional module. It is off until an owner, admin or HR switches it on, and only they can see it.
- Joiners, leavers, salary changes, leave, sickness statistics, benefits, company car benefits and business trip amounts arrive as lines. HR adds the rest by hand.
- Export is a CSV for every company, DATEV files for companies in Germany, and a column mapping for anyone else’s provider.
What goes into the month
Choose the month and press Collect changes. HR FLARE reads what already lives in the product, so nobody retypes it:
- People: joiners and leavers, salary and contract changes, and working student hours.
- Time away: approved leave, and for sickness only the number of working days and how many episodes began. The type of leave and the reason never reach the report.
- Benefits: every start, change and end of a benefit, with the amount payroll has to deal with once the person’s own share is taken off.
- Company cars: the private use benefit of each driver and the costs a driver paid out of pocket.
- Business trips: the per diem and travel amounts of trips that were closed.
Every line carries a wage type, hours, days or an amount, and a cost centre, so the file can be read by a payroll system without a translation step. HR can add lines of its own, for example a one-off payment.
Checks that run when you collect
A finding is information for a person. Nothing is locked and nothing is blocked because of one.
| Check | What it looks at | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Name | A person without a first or last name | Every company |
| Personnel number | A person without a payroll personnel number | Every company |
| Required documents | A required document is not on file for the person’s contract type | Every company |
| Benefits limit | Benefits in kind of the month against the tax free limit | Where the company has set a limit; Germany is pre-filled |
| Short term employment | Days worked so far in the year against the day limit | Germany only |
| Working students | Hours in a calendar week against the weekly limit | Germany only |
Each check has its own switch, every limit is a value the company can change, and a finding can be acknowledged with a comment that stores who and when.
From collected to handed over
- Collect and review. Findings show above the lines. Fix the source or acknowledge the finding with a comment.
- Approve. Owner, admin or HR approves. If you want a second pair of eyes, switch on the second approval. It is off by default.
- The month locks. Approving stores a snapshot of the report. A change made later does not rewrite it. It shows up as a correction line in the next open month.
- Send or download. Send the PDF and CSV to your advisor from HR FLARE, or export the file and send it yourself, then mark it as sent.
Export formats
Every company can export the approved report as a CSV. Which columns, in which order, under which header, with which separator, decimal mark and date format is a setting, so you can match the import file of your own payroll provider and keep that mapping for the following months.
Companies in Germany also get the DATEV exports for LODAS and for Lohn und Gehalt, built from the frozen snapshot with your advisor number, client number and wage type mapping. We recommend that your tax advisor imports one test file before the first live month, because every advisor’s DATEV setup differs. Companies outside Germany never see DATEV or German payroll terms.
What it does not do
No payroll calculation. HR FLARE does not calculate wage tax or social security, does not file anything with an authority and does not pay anyone. The report is the handover, and your accountant or payroll provider still runs payroll.
Because the report holds pay data, only owner, admin and HR can open it. Managers cannot, and neither can the platform operator. Changes to it are written to the audit trail.
Frequently asked questions
Does HR FLARE calculate payroll?
Who can see the payroll report?
What happens if something changes after I approved the month?
Is the DATEV export available outside Germany?
Is the module on by default?
Keep reading
Give your payroll provider clean data every month
Collect, check, approve and export in one place. Free up to 5 employees, no credit card.