Payroll Approval
Learn why regularly approving preliminary payroll is important to ensure that highlighted data changes are displayed correctly and no information is lost.
What Happens When You Approve Preliminary Payroll
Approving the preliminary payroll triggers three key actions:
- Personnel data is frozen – The current state of all employee data in the Personnel Data tab is locked. An export based on the table data is generated.
- Change markers are reset – For the next payroll period, only changes made since the last approval are highlighted.
- Later changes remain visible – Any changes made after the approval can still be viewed in the detail view of individual employees and in any subsequent exports.
Regular Approval
When you approve preliminary payroll regularly, the change markers in the Personnel Data tab are updated with each approval. Even if the actual approval date shifts and differs from your defined payroll deadline, the markers are reliably reset with every approval.
Example: Your payroll deadline is the 20th of each month. If you approve early on the 18th, the system marks all changes that occur between that point and the next approval – regardless of the payroll period boundaries. If you approve late on the 21st, no changes are lost either.
The change markers always reflect the period between the last approval and the current state – not the calendar-based payroll period. This means you have full flexibility in when you approve.
What Happens If You Never Approve
If you create exports at the end of your payroll period without ever approving, the change markers in the Personnel Data tab are updated automatically on the first day of each new payroll period.
This means: if you create an export on a date other than the end of the payroll period, changes that occur between the export date and the start of the new period will not be highlighted.
Example: Your payroll deadline is the 20th. You create an export on the 18th without approving. On the 20th, the system automatically resets the markers. Any changes between the 18th and 20th are no longer highlighted and may be missed.
Once you approve for the first time, all subsequent changes are highlighted until the next approval. If you then stop approving in the following months, it becomes impossible to distinguish between current and older changes based on the markers.
Changes After Approval
Once the payroll has been approved, the Personnel Data tab is frozen and subsequent changes are no longer displayed there. This ensures you always know exactly which data has already been forwarded to your payroll provider.
Handling Late Changes
If changes occur after approval that still need to be included in the current payroll period:
- Create an additional export by clicking Create Export
- The new export highlights the late changes in yellow
- Forward the additional export to your payroll provider
- These changes will no longer appear as new in the following month
Even though late changes are not visible in the frozen Personnel Data tab, they are fully captured in subsequent exports. No data is lost.