Preparing the Monthly Close
The plausibility check: reconcile the shift plan against time tracking before the month goes to payroll.
Lohnbuchhaltung › Abschluss vorbereiten is the final control before a month goes to payroll. The page reconciles the shift plan against time tracking and reports everything that does not line up -- while it can still be fixed.
Access
Requires the accounting permission tier and the payroll add-on. In tenants with volunteer mode enabled the entire payroll area is hidden.
Selecting the month
The month picker sits top right. It defaults to the last completed month -- i.e. the previous one. You can select that month and the three months before it.
Sidebar counter
The Abschluss vorbereiten entry carries a counter with the number of open findings for the last completed month, so you can see from the navigation whether anything is still outstanding.
The check
While it runs, a progress indicator moves through three stages:
- "Schichtplan wird eingelesen …" -- reading the shift plan
- "Zeiterfassung wird abgeglichen …" -- reconciling time entries
- "Plausibilität wird geprüft …" -- checking plausibility
The result header then reads either "Alle Prüfungen bestanden" or "n Auffälligkeiten gefunden", together with four figures:
| Figure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Prüfungen | How many checks ran |
| Bestanden | How many came back clean |
| Auffälligkeiten | Total flagged entries |
| Betroffene MA | How many employees are affected overall |
The three checks
1. Zeiterfassung ohne Schicht — time without a shift
Reconciles every recorded time against the accepted shift plan.
Employees recorded time but are not on the shift plan. Likely causes: the person is not registered in payroll, or shift plan changes were not carried over correctly.
The table shows Name, Abrechnung (employment type) and Personalnummer. A missing personnel number reads "Fehlt". Volunteers additionally carry a Volunteer badge.
2. Schicht ohne freigegebene Zeiterfassung — shift without released time
Checks that every accepted shift has a released time entry.
Employees were assigned to a shift but recorded no time. Either they did not show up -- or the time entry simply was not released. The second case is by far the more common one and can be fixed under Zeiterfassung in a few clicks.
3. Zeiterfassung vor erster Schicht — time before the first shift
Detects released times that fall before the employee's earliest shift.
The table puts Zeiterfassung am and Früheste Schicht side by side, plus Personalnummer and Abrechnung.
This check blocks the export
Released times before the earliest accepted shift must be corrected. Until then no export is possible -- payroll would otherwise bill an employment period that was never agreed.
What happens next
If all checks come back clean, the page reports: "Schichtplan und Zeiterfassung für month sind plausibel und exportbereit." Only then do you run the actual export under Lohnbuchhaltung › Schnittstelle.
Checks without findings are collapsed and marked Bestanden with the line "Keine Auffälligkeiten in dieser Prüfung.", so the open items stay at the top.
Order of the monthly close
The four pages under Lohnbuchhaltung build on each other:
- Abschluss vorbereiten -- check data quality and close the gaps.
- Geringfügige -- decide per mini-jobber whether times are exported automatically or recorded manually.
- 70-Tage-Regelung -- check whether short-term employees are running out of days.
- Schnittstelle -- export master data and movement data.