Payroll integration
Zoho People to DATEV integration: German employees from Zoho People forms to DATEV
An integration between Zoho People and DATEV prepares new employees, changes and leavers of the German entity from Zoho People for DATEV LODAS or Lohn und Gehalt every pay month. Zoho People has no DATEV integration, so KoppelHet reads the employee form and the custom German fields through the API and delivers master and movement data that the tax adviser takes over.
What the integration does
Organisations that already work with Zoho and run HR in Zoho People often have a tax adviser with DATEV for a German entity. Zoho Payroll does not calculate German pay, so the firm receives an export every month and works out itself what changed.
- HR sets up custom fields in the employee form for the German data and records starters, changes and leavers.
- A workflow with a webhook reports a new record; KoppelHet also reads all records changed since the previous round every day.
- KoppelHet selects the German entity and converts fields and table rows to master and movement data.
- Before the cut-off KoppelHet delivers the month to DATEV; the tax adviser takes over the data.
- Empty mandatory fields and unknown table rows appear on a list for HR.
What to watch for with Zoho People and DATEV
- In Zoho People employees are a form the administrator sets up, without standard fields for tax ID, social security number or health insurer. At the start we fix the internal field names; what is not in Zoho is filled in by the tax adviser in DATEV and not overwritten by the integration.
- With the modifiedtime parameter the API only fetches records added or changed after a point in time, in milliseconds. KoppelHet remembers the time of the previous round and only delivers real changes to the firm.
- A webhook in Zoho People hangs on a workflow per form. A new record can be reported immediately that way, but a changed salary not with certainty; KoppelHet therefore also reads daily on change date.
- Repeating data such as salary history sits in tabular sections, where every row has its own ROWID. KoppelHet remembers per ROWID what already went to DATEV, so an edited row arrives as a correction and not as a second salary.
- One request returns at most 200 records, and above 400 requests per minute Zoho blocks for five minutes. KoppelHet reads in pages of 200 and stays well below that threshold, so a run just before the cut-off does not stall.
- Zoho People returns the time added as readable text and the time modified as a number in milliseconds. KoppelHet converts all dates to the form DATEV expects, and flags a date field that cannot be read unambiguously.
- The API is only available in the Essential HR, Professional, Premium and Enterprise plans. Without one of those plans no integration with DATEV is possible, and we check that before the quote.
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
Why not everything through webhooks?
Webhooks hang on workflows and do not cover every change with certainty. A daily read on change date catches the rest.
Does leave go along too?
Not in the first version. Absence from Zoho People to DATEV can follow later as an extension.
Technical details for IT
For those who want to know how it works under the hood: APIs, fields and sources used.
- Zoho People through the REST API with OAuth (scope ZOHOPEOPLE.forms.READ) - GET forms/employee/getRecords with sIndex, limit up to 200, modifiedtime in milliseconds and SearchColumn EMPLOYEEID; tabularSections with tabular.ROWID per row. Threshold 400 requests per minute with a five-minute lock. Webhooks per form through Automation, attached to a workflow.
- To DATEV through the Lohnimportdatenservice (master and movement data via the DATEV data centre, activation in DATEV Arbeitsplatz by the tax adviser, only for selected software) or an ASCII file the firm loads into LODAS or Lohn und Gehalt itself.
Which fields are transferred
The key fields. The full mapping is agreed per customer.
| Field in Zoho People | Field in DATEV | Notes |
|---|---|---|
EmployeeID | Personalnummer | |
Voornaam, achternaam, geboortedatum (employee-formulier) | Vorname, Familienname, Geburtsdatum | |
Eigen veld Steuer-ID | Steuer-Identifikationsnummer | |
Eigen veld IBAN | Bankverbindung | |
Tabelsectie salaris (rij met tabular.ROWID) | Festbezug met Lohnart | |
Datum uit dienst | Austrittsdatum |
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