Set up payroll and add employees

Payroll exists only for companies in Germany. For a Swiss company the app does not run payroll.
Open Settings, then the Payroll tab in the section Company, and choose Switch payroll on. Afterwards Payroll appears in the sidebar. Only someone with rights over the client settings can switch it on.
In the sidebar open Payroll, tab Employees, and choose Add employee. Fill in First name, Last name, Start date, Type of employment and Paid by with the pay, then choose Save. Tax ID, IBAN and similar identifiers are stored encrypted.
In the same form, under Employee master data, enter the Personnel number, Activity key, Payment method and the care insurance fields. A draft employee that was never paid can be removed with Withdraw employee.
For a month, open the tab Payroll run, choose the Payroll month and then Open the month.
In the step Absences choose Add absence and enter the Type, From and To dates, for example vacation or sickness.
In the step Hours and pay enter Hours, Variable pay (EUR) and One-off payment (EUR) per employee. The app only collects them: calculation, payslips, booking and filings are not available yet, your tax advisor does those.
In the step Wage tax return the app shows the month's values to copy into Mein ELSTER for the Lohnsteuer-Anmeldung: per Field the Line and the Value, such as the number of employees, the wage tax, the solidarity surcharge and the church tax. Nothing is submitted from here; you or your tax advisor file the return. Field 48 (Remaining amount, Verbleiben on the form) is the wage tax left after the deductions of lines 21 and 22, field 83 (Total amount, Gesamtbetrag on the form) field 48 plus the solidarity surcharge and the church tax: the amount you pay to the tax office, or your refund when it is negative. These fields belong to the wage tax return, not to the VAT return, which uses the same numbers for other fields. The app does not calculate fields 44, 33, 45 and 47 (flat-rate wage tax under Sec. 37b EStG, merchant ship crews, company pension subsidy, flat-rate church tax) or the state lines such as the chamber levy of Bremen (field 68) or Saarland (field 70); if one of them applies, the total amount is incomplete and you add it yourself. As long as this year's rates are not approved, or an employee liable to church tax has no denomination on file, the step only names the reason.
In the step Payments the app shows the payment list of the month: net pay per employee, one line per health fund, the Minijob-Zentrale and the tax office (Finanzamt), each with Due, Channel, Status and Amount, and below them the totals of the payments, the payroll journal and what is posted. Nothing is transferred from here, and an employee's IBAN shows only its last four digits. A line stays Open until the bank matching can assign payroll payments. A warning names a duplicate payment or a payment due before the end of the month. As long as your tax advisor has not approved this year's rates, the step only says so.
In the step Close the app shows the three totals again. Close month is for someone who may change payroll. Today it cannot succeed for a month with amounts: payroll entries are not posted to the ledger yet, so the step says so and the button stays off. Once they are posted, it is available when the payroll journal, the posting and the payment list agree to the cent. Other reasons the step names: month not opened, rates not approved, no employee, totals that disagree. The app then asks once more: choose Close for good to close. A closed month is final and is never reopened; corrections go into the next open month. Afterwards the step shows who closed the month and when.
Sunday, holiday and night premiums, overtime premiums and travel allowances are not calculated in the first version.
To add many employees at once, open the tab Employees, choose Import employees, pick a CSV in the format of the employee export and choose Check the file. The check lists every error by row number and saves nothing. Import now is available once the file has no errors, and the file is imported all or nothing: if one row is wrong, no employee is created.