Payroll integration
Sage People to DATEV integration: German payroll changes from Sage People to DATEV
An integration between Sage People and DATEV prepares new German employees, salary changes, bonuses and departures from Sage People in DATEV Lohn und Gehalt or LODAS, where the Steuerberater checks and takes them over. Sage People delivers the data with its own Payflow export, and KoppelHet converts it to the shape DATEV expects, with the office's wage types.
What the integration does
Organisations that use Sage People worldwide as their HR system and have the German salaries processed by a Steuerberater in DATEV send changes as a spreadsheet without an integration. The office retypes them in DATEV, and a pay rise HR enters retroactively after the cut-off falls between two months.
- In Sage People we set up a Payflow service that only selects German employees, with files for master data, salary and bonus.
- The service runs on a fixed schedule and places the files for KoppelHet through secure file transfer.
- KoppelHet converts the data to master and movement data with the wage types the Steuerberater uses.
- The delivery goes through the Lohnimportdatenservice to the DATEV data centre, or as an ASCII file to the office.
- The Steuerberater takes the data over and runs the German payroll; KoppelHet reports what is still open just before the cut-off.
What to watch for with Sage People and DATEV
- Sage People has its own mechanism for outgoing payroll data, Payflow, which creates one or more export files per service. In a Payflow service you select employees on a team member field, such as country. KoppelHet sets that selection to Germany, so colleagues from other countries never end up in a file for the Steuerberater.
- Payflow can select salary records that start before or during the payroll period, and then excludes salaries that only begin after the period. KoppelHet switches that option on, so a raise from next month does not already land in the current German payroll, but in the month it takes effect.
- By default Payflow only includes employees active in the current period. A leaver then drops out of the file in the month they leave. With the option to include the previous period as well they stay visible, so KoppelHet can pass the Austrittsdatum to DATEV.
- Payflow only includes a bonus a leaver is still owed if the option for post-employment bonuses is on. In Germany such a later payment does have to go through payroll. KoppelHet switches that option on and delivers the bonus as movement data on the wage type the office uses for it.
- Payflow writes files in UTF-8 by default and puts dates in the file name and header in GMT, even if your environment has a different time zone. KoppelHet therefore handles German names with umlauts and dates around midnight itself, before the data goes into the DATEV format.
- DATEV's Lohnimportdatenservice brings master and movement data to the payroll program through the DATEV data centre, and according to DATEV is only available for selected software. The Steuerberater activates the service in DATEV Arbeitsplatz. If KoppelHet cannot use that route, KoppelHet delivers an ASCII file the office imports itself.
- Payflow can send files on a schedule to an SFTP server, and deletes old batches after a configurable number of days. KoppelHet collects each batch before it disappears and keeps its own record of what went to DATEV, so for any question from the Steuerberater it is always possible to trace which change was in which month.
How we build and run it
- The integration runs on the KoppelHet platform, hosted in a data centre in the EU.
- Every sync and every error is visible in the functional log; on an error your administrator is notified.
- A change that cannot go through is not half-applied but queued for another attempt.
- KoppelHet is ISO 27001 certified. Data travels encrypted and stays on the platform no longer than needed.
- After go-live we manage the integration and adjust it when your process changes.
- The integration fits next to your existing integration layer. Only the fields in the design are transferred; the platform keeps no register of its own.
Implementation and price
This is not an app you switch on. We build the integration for your organisation on our platform, with building blocks we reuse on every project. So it is custom work that does not start from scratch.
A consultant prepares the intake and analyses both systems. We then record the mapping and exceptions field by field, test in the test or acceptance environment and go live at a moment you choose. Costs are a one-off amount for the setup and a monthly amount for platform, monitoring and support.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Steuerberater still do?
The office checks the delivered data, takes it over in DATEV and runs payroll. Retyping is no longer needed.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- Sage People Payflow (outbound): Payflow service with Download Configure (Team Member Select Field and Value, for example fHCM2__Country__c = Germany; Salary Select Dates; Team Member Include Period Back; Bonus Select Dates; Include Post Employment Bonus), download files per group (Salary, Bonus), UTF-8, delimiters and fixed record length configurable, dates in GMT, Create Change Log, Batch Start Cron Command, Delete Batch After Days and Managed File Transfer through SFTP.
- To DATEV through the Lohnimportdatenservice (master and movement data via the DATEV data centre, activated in DATEV Arbeitsplatz by the Steuerberater, only for selected software, € 0.05 per billed employee per month) or an ASCII file the office imports itself into Lohn und Gehalt or LODAS.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in Sage People | Field in DATEV | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Team member (employee ID) | Personalnummer | Or a lookup if the office uses its own numbers |
Naam en geboortedatum (team member) | Name, Vorname, Geburtsdatum | |
Start date van het employment record | Eintrittsdatum | |
Salary record (bedrag, frequentie, startdatum) | Festbezug | Converted to the monthly amount |
Bonus record (bedrag, uitbetaaldatum) | Lohnart (Bewegungsdaten) | Through a lookup per bonus type |
Bankgegevens (team member) | Bankverbindung (IBAN) | |
End date van het employment record | Austrittsdatum |
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