A global HR system such as Workday, HiBob, Personio or SAP SuccessFactors usually lacks the data only Dutch payroll needs: loonheffingskorting (Dutch payroll tax credit), cao (collective labour agreement), pension, a validated BSN (Dutch citizen service number) and often a standard field for IBAN too. That data comes from a separate Dutch table in HR or is filled in in AFAS, Nmbrs, Loket or Visma YouServe, and the integration does not overwrite it afterwards.
This is the question that comes back in every project with a head office abroad. HR in the Netherlands gets a system set up for all countries, and the payroll team misses exactly the fields it needs to run payroll. This article sets out per data item where it can come from.
Why head office does not have these fields
The HR system of an international group describes employees in a way that works in every country: name, job, department, contract, salary. Dutch concepts such as loonheffingskorting or a cao pay scale do not exist in most countries, so head office does not set them up. The system also often works with an annual salary in the head office currency.
Payroll does need that data for the first run. Without an agreement, the payroll team retypes it, or only discovers a new colleague after the run. That colleague then gets their first salary late.
The data you have to arrange per field
At the start, we record per field which system is the source. For the Dutch data, these choices usually come back:
- BSN. Only the Dutch identification number goes along as BSN. KoppelHet checks it with the elfproef (the Dutch eleven test checksum), so a foreign number never ends up in the payroll tax return. In SuccessFactors, national numbers are stored per country, so the integration picks the Dutch one.
- IBAN. BambooHR and HiBob have no standard field for it. It then comes from a custom field that only HR in the Netherlands can see.
- Loonheffingskorting, cao and pension. These come from a separate Dutch table in HR, or the payroll team fills them in in payroll. If your organisation chooses the second, the integration leaves those fields alone.
- Country of residence. If an employee of the Dutch entity lives in Belgium or Germany, the different country of residence has to be in payroll by the first run.
- Salary. An annual salary becomes a monthly amount, divided by thirteen with vierwekenverloning (four-weekly payroll). An hourly wage stays an hourly wage.
A salary in dollars or pounds
A salary in another currency never goes through unnoticed. An exchange rate does not belong in payroll processing. We agree in advance which euro amount applies for the Netherlands. That amount is then in HR, and the integration converts it to the amount per pay period.
How that annual amount is divided also depends on what it contains. In the Netherlands, holiday pay is often included in the head office annual amount. How to separate that is covered in the cluster on pay components.
Who does and does not go into payroll
A global HR system contains everyone: own employees in all countries, contractors and people who work through an employer of record. The integration only sees the Dutch entity and the data payroll needs. Data of colleagues in other countries does not leave the HR system. Preferably, the integration also only gets rights to the Dutch employees in the HR system.
Contractors and employer of record workers, for example in Deel, stay outside payroll. If someone moves from the employer of record to the own BV, that is a new hire for payroll. The EOR period has already been paid by Deel.
Empty fields and rights
HiBob and Dayforce leave out a field the integration has no rights to without an error message. An empty field in payroll is then usually a matter of rights in the HR system.
The check on the payroll side counts too. In Loket, a new employee comes in as a draft with a checklist. The payroll team keeps its check before anyone enters the payroll run.
How KoppelHet builds this
KoppelHet builds this integration per organisation on the KoppelHet platform and then manages it, with logging per employee and a check before the submission deadline. At the start, we record per field what comes from HR and what stays in payroll. Multiple bv's (Dutch private limited companies), custom pay components and effective dates per period are part of the design. As an indication, allow three to six weeks.
Examples of this combination are Workday with AFAS, HiBob with Nmbrs and Personio with Loket. Read more about global HR with Dutch payroll, or start with payroll integration. The payroll journal that belongs in the accounts after the run is covered under payroll to finance.