Contents
What payroll really needs
Not all the times, but the derived figures. Anyone sending a list of every clocking event merely shifts the work, and it gets done by hand a second time there.
- Paid regular hours in the month, per person.
- Premium hours separated into night, Sunday and public holiday, because they are treated differently for tax (section 3b EStG).
- Absences by type: leave, illness, unpaid leave of absence, public holiday.
- Overtime, in so far as it is paid out rather than put into the account.
- The state of the hours account at the end of the month, as a control figure.
The month-end close is the actual job
A handover is only as good as the close before it. If a sick note is missing, a leave request is still pending or somebody forgot to clock out, the total is wrong, and the mistake only surfaces on the payslip.
So a check belongs before the export: missing days, pending requests, entries without an end, times outside the working time model. Only then is the month locked, and only a locked month is a solid basis.
Corrections after the fact are the normal case, not the exception. What matters is that they stay traceable: who changed what and when. Without that history, there is no way in case of doubt to establish whether the payroll or the recording was wrong.
Formats and routes
In small and medium-sized businesses the handover almost always runs via a file, and that is not backwardness but a deliberate decision: the file is readable, checkable and archivable, and the tax adviser can process it without access to the system.
| Route | When it fits | What needs settling |
|---|---|---|
| DATEV payroll file per month | When the accountant runs payroll with DATEV LODAS or DATEV Lohn und Gehalt. They import the file instead of retyping. | Get the consultant number, client number, wage types and DATEV personnel numbers from the accountant once. In MetronHR the DATEV payroll export is included in both plans. |
| An Excel file per month | The usual case without DATEV. One row per person, one column per value. | Agree column names and their order with payroll once, and then keep them the same. |
| A CSV file | When the other side imports automatically. | Settle the separator, the character set and the decimal separator in advance, otherwise 7.5 hours turns into 75. |
| REST API | When a system is to fetch the data itself on a regular basis. | An account with read access to time entries and absences is enough; it should get no more. |
| Webhook | When the other side is to learn immediately that something has changed. | The receiver has to tolerate duplicate deliveries; the delivery identifier stays the same for that. |
DATEV payroll file per month
- When it fits
- When the accountant runs payroll with DATEV LODAS or DATEV Lohn und Gehalt. They import the file instead of retyping.
- What needs settling
- Get the consultant number, client number, wage types and DATEV personnel numbers from the accountant once. In MetronHR the DATEV payroll export is included in both plans.
An Excel file per month
- When it fits
- The usual case without DATEV. One row per person, one column per value.
- What needs settling
- Agree column names and their order with payroll once, and then keep them the same.
A CSV file
- When it fits
- When the other side imports automatically.
- What needs settling
- Settle the separator, the character set and the decimal separator in advance, otherwise 7.5 hours turns into 75.
REST API
- When it fits
- When a system is to fetch the data itself on a regular basis.
- What needs settling
- An account with read access to time entries and absences is enough; it should get no more.
Webhook
- When it fits
- When the other side is to learn immediately that something has changed.
- What needs settling
- The receiver has to tolerate duplicate deliveries; the delivery identifier stays the same for that.
Where it comes unstuck in practice
At three points, and none of them is technical. First at absences that are only in the calendar and not in the time tracking. Second at premiums that are paid as a flat rate instead of being derived from the actual times, which makes the tax exemption under section 3b EStG impossible to demonstrate. Third at corrections typed into the file after the fact instead of into the recording: after that the file and the system no longer match, and nobody knows which figure applies.
This is not legal advice; for a specific case at your workplace you are better off asking someone qualified to give it.
Published by: AMNAU GmbH
Editorial responsibility: Ugur Aydogan, Product development.
Last reviewed: 24 October 2026