Managing payroll
Running the monthly payroll
Prepare payslips, complete and check them, then approve and post them
Every month, payroll follows the same path: you prepare one payslip per employee, complete it (hours, bonuses, absences, expenses), check it and then approve it. Approval posts the entries to the club's accounts. The payment to the employee's account is then made through the bank.
A payslip goes through the statuses To prepare, Draft, Approved and then Paid.
Before the first payroll: the settings, the AVS office, the accounts and at least one employee must be in place. Until they are, a box Before the first payroll lists the steps at the top of the page. See the article Setting up payroll.
Open the monthly payroll
In the side menu, open Invoices and click Payroll. The Monthly payroll tab opens on the current month. Change month with the arrows next to the month name in the blue banner.
The month's payslips in draft, ready to be checked and approved
- The tiles summarise the month: number of payslips out of the number of employees, gross salaries, net to pay, employer contributions and total cost (gross + employer contributions).
- The table lists the employees employed that month, with their contract (Monthly or Hourly, with the number of hours entered), gross, net, employer contributions and the payslip status.
- An orange triangle next to the status flags a draft with warnings to check (step 4).
Prepare payslips
When active employees employed that month do not yet have a payslip, the button Prepare payslips appears with their number in brackets. One click creates all the missing drafts at once.
Three payslips to prepare, with the two carry-over options
Two options next to the button decide what the new drafts contain:
- Copy last month's entries: hours, allowances, expenses, benefits in kind and other lines entered the previous month are copied. One-off lines are never copied: bonuses, salary corrections, APG compensation and daily benefits, birth allowance, advances and LPP buy-ins. With the option off, an hourly employee gets an empty hours line at their hourly wage.
- Take hours from the lesson schedule (only if the club uses lessons): for each hourly employee, the hours of the lessons they gave that month, as group leader or as 2nd teacher, replace the quantity of the first hours line.
In every case, the fixed lines from the employee record (expense allowance, function allowance…) are added. The monthly salary, 13th salary, holidays, contributions and family allowances are not entered: they are calculated. The suggested payment date is the last day of the month. Your option choices are remembered for the following months.
To create the payslip of a single employee, click the + button on their row (Create payslip): it copies last month's entries and opens straight away.
Complete a payslip
Click the employee's row (or the pencil): the payslip panel opens. The This month's entries section holds the lines you can change.
- To add a line, choose the pay item in the + Add a line… list: the pay items are grouped there (salary and hours, bonuses and allowances, compensated absences, expenses, benefits in kind, deductions, club pay items).
- Enter the amount or, for hours, the quantity and the rate (the hourly wage from the employee record is used). The Details (optional) field adds to the description printed on the payslip, for example the reason for a bonus.
- To remove a line, click its bin icon.
A bonus added to the entertainment allowance taken from the employee record
The payslip is recalculated as you type: the breakdown below the entries updates immediately.
The recalculated payslip, with employer contributions expanded
- Gross salary: salary, 13th salary, bonuses, allowances…; then the Deductions (employee contributions, deductions) and reimbursed expenses, down to Net pay.
- Lines in bold are calculated automatically; only the lines in the This month's entries section can be changed.
- The small badge next to each line shows the salary certificate box the amount will go to.
- Click Employer contributions to see the contributions paid by the club and the total cost.
- The last line shows the salary subject to AVS, AC and LAA this month.
For an hourly employee, if the club uses lessons, the Hours from the lesson schedule button finds the lessons they gave during the month and puts their duration in the hours line. A message shows the number of hours and lessons found. If the schedule has no lessons that month, the hours already entered are kept and a warning is shown.
Payslip of a coach paid by the hour
An absence for military service, maternity, illness or accident is entered with the Compensated absence button: see the article Entering a compensated absence.
In the Payment section, adjust the Payment date if needed (it is also the date of the accounting entries) and add a Note, printed on the payslip. Finally, click Save.
Check the warnings
When the calculation detects a special situation, an orange box appears at the top of the payslip.
An instructor who works less than 8 hours a week
| Warning | What to do |
|---|---|
| Previous months still in draft | Approve the previous months first: ceilings and catch-ups only count approved payslips. |
| Family allowances not paid | The monthly salary is below the minimum for allowances: nothing to do if this is expected. |
| Less than 8 hours per week | No non-occupational accident (ANP) contribution: check the weekly hours in the employee record. |
| Minor salary threshold exceeded | AVS/AC contributions for previous months are caught up on this payslip. |
| Date of birth missing / below the LPP threshold | Complete the employee record, or check that the employee is not subject to LPP. |
| Negative net pay | Deductions exceed the salary: check the advances and deductions entered. |
| Employee not employed this month | Check the start and end dates in the employee record. |
View the payslip as a PDF
In the panel, the Preview button opens the payslip as a PDF, marked DRAFT until it is approved. If you have just changed lines, it saves them first. The All payslips (PDF) button above the table puts the month's payslips into a single file.
The draft payslip
Approve and post
Once the payslips are checked:
- for a single payslip, click Approve and post at the bottom of the panel (the entries shown are saved at the same time);
- for all the month's drafts, click Approve and post above the table (the number of drafts is shown in brackets).
Confirm with OK.
The confirmation before approving a payslip
On approval, the payslip is recalculated one last time and then locked: the data from the employee record is kept in it as it is, and a later change to the record no longer affects it. The payslip then shows its accounting voucher number (for example Voucher SAL26) and can no longer be changed without cancelling the approval.
Approval is refused if an account used does not exist in the chart of accounts (create it in the Settings tab, Accounts section) or if the accounting year of the payment date is already closed. In a group approval, refused payslips stay in draft and the reason is given in the message.
Approve the months in order. Annual ceilings (AC, LAA), the minor salary catch-up and the 13th salary paid in June or December are calculated from the year's payslips already approved.
What happens to the entries
Each approved payslip produces a few entries in the journal, on the payment date, under the same voucher number. The description gives the month, the employee and the pay items concerned, for example “Salaire 10.2026 Démo Marc : AVS/AI/APG, Assurance chômage”. Lines on the same accounts are grouped.
| Payslip line | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Salary, 13th salary, holidays, bonuses | Salaries (expense account) | Net salaries payable |
| Family allowances | AVS/family allowance office | Net salaries payable |
| APG compensation, daily benefits | Insurance benefits receivable | Net salaries payable |
| Reimbursed expenses | Reimbursed expenses | Net salaries payable |
| Employee contributions and deductions | Net salaries payable | Account of the fund or insurer |
| Employer contributions | Social charges account | Account of the fund or insurer |
| Benefits in kind | Salaries (expense account) | Benefits in kind |
A negative line (a salary correction, for example) swaps debit and credit. The account numbers are those of the Settings tab, Accounts.
After approval, the Net salaries payable account holds the net pay of each payslip. It is cleared by the payment, which you import with the bank statement: the payslip then changes to Paid. See the article Paying salaries and reconciling them with the bank.
Plugin.ch tutorial — Managing payroll