# Salary lines (wage types): monthly, hourly with vacation pay, overtime, 13th, bonus, expense reimbursements; which expenses go through the salary

> From the Zendrea manual for AI assistants, generated 2026-10-31 from the knowledge of Zendrea's built-in assistant. All topics: https://www.zendrea.ch/llms.txt; all of them in one file: https://www.zendrea.ch/llms-full.txt. Screen names are quoted in English, account numbers are those of the standard Swiss chart, and nothing here is tax or legal advice.

A salary booking (Entries → Salaries) is a list of **lines**, each of a wage type; the engine sums the contribution bases from the lines, books the journal entry and prints the payslip from them. The types and what they do:

| Line | Entered as | AHV/ALV/UVG/KTG | BVG | Lohnausweis | Account |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Monthly salary** | amount | yes | yes | box 1 | 5600 salary expense |
| **Hourly wage** | hours × rate per hour (cents, rounded per line) | yes | yes | box 1 | 5600 |
| **Overtime** | hours × the normal rate per hour × (100 + surcharge) %, one line rounded once; surcharge 25 % by default, 0 to 100 (see "Overtime" below) | yes | no | box 1 | 5600 |
| **Vacation pay** | percent of the run's hourly wage and overtime lines: 8.33 % for four weeks of vacation, 10.64 % for five (OR 329a/329d; owed on top of the hourly wage and shown apart on the payslip) | yes | yes | box 1 | 5600 |
| **13th salary** | amount; starts from the monthly salary in effect, reduce it pro rata for someone who joined during the year | yes | no | box 1 | 5600 |
| **Bonus** | amount (also a Gratifikation, a one-off premium) | yes | no | box 3 "Unregelmässige Leistungen", kind "Bonus" | 5600 |
| **Expenses: travel, meals, lodging** | amount, the month's total against receipts | no | no | box 13.1.1 | 5820 (or the account picked on the line) |
| **Other expenses (effective)** | amount against receipts (phone, tools, literature, parking) | no | no | box 13.1.2 | 5820 |
| **Lump-sum expenses: representation** | flat monthly amount | no | no | box 13.2.1 | 5830 |
| **Lump-sum expenses: car** | flat monthly amount | no | no | box 13.2.2 | 5830 |
| **Other lump-sum expenses** | flat monthly amount | no | no | box 13.2.3 | 5830 |

**The lines' names in the app's languages** (name a line by the label of the user's language):

| EN | DE | FR | IT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly salary | Monatslohn | Salaire mensuel | Salario mensile |
| Hourly wage | Stundenlohn | Salaire horaire | Salario orario |
| Overtime | Überstunden | Heures supplémentaires | Ore straordinarie |
| Vacation pay | Ferienentschädigung | Indemnité de vacances | Indennità per vacanze |
| 13th salary | 13. Monatslohn | 13e salaire | Tredicesima |
| Bonus | Bonus | Bonus | Bonus |
| Expenses: travel, meals, lodging | Spesen effektiv: Reise, Verpflegung, Übernachtung | Frais effectifs: voyage, repas, logement | Spese effettive: viaggio, vitto, alloggio |
| Other expenses (effective) | Übrige effektive Spesen | Autres frais effectifs | Altre spese effettive |
| Lump-sum expenses: representation | Pauschalspesen Repräsentation | Frais forfaitaires de représentation | Spese forfettarie di rappresentanza |
| Lump-sum expenses: car | Pauschalspesen Auto | Frais forfaitaires de voiture | Spese forfettarie auto |
| Other lump-sum expenses | Übrige Pauschalspesen | Autres frais forfaitaires | Altre spese forfettarie |

**Rules the engine applies.** The gross is the salary lines only; the five expense lines are **reimbursements**, outside every contribution base, outside the gross and outside the AHV wage statement and the AHVeasy file. The payslip prints them below the net under "Expenses" and ends with the **payout = net + expenses**; the payment list and the pain.001 file pay that payout; a bank statement line of the payout matches the booking. Each expense line books Dr its expense account / Cr the payment account inside the salary entry (one line per account), with the text "... (expenses)". **BVG is charged once a calendar month**: the pension fund's fixed monthly amount on the first run of the month that carries a monthly salary, hourly wage or vacation pay line; a run with only a 13th, a bonus, overtime or expenses charges none, and a second run in the month charges none again — so a bonus paid apart from the monthly salary is simply its own salary booking (same day: its Belegnummer gets "-2"). An employee without a BVG setting can be paid a bonus, not a monthly salary; an employee the pension fund does not insure (below the BVG entry threshold, CHF 22,680 a year since 2025, typical for a student helper paid by the hour) gets a BVG setting of 0 under Settings → Persons → Salary data, and salaries then book without a pension deduction. A salary booking needs at least one salary line: expenses ride on a salary, they are never booked alone (a reimbursement outside any salary month: the Others form, debit the expense account, credit the bank, or wait for the next salary). The salary history in Settings → Persons → Salary data holds the monthly gross and, for hourly staff, the hourly rate; a new salary starts from the row in effect at the booking date and follows the employee and the date until a line is edited.

**Overtime (Überstunden) and Überzeit.** One line type, "Overtime", pays hours at the employee's normal hourly rate plus a surcharge: hours × rate × (100 + surcharge) %, rounded once to the cent. The payslip prints it as "Überstunden 125 %" with the hours, the rate without the surcharge and the amount. The law behind the surcharge:
- *Überstunden* (OR 321c): hours beyond the working time of the employment contract (for part-time staff, beyond their agreed hours). If employer and employee agree, they are compensated by time off of at least the same length; otherwise they are paid with the normal wage plus at least 25 %, unless a written agreement, a GAV or a NAV says otherwise (a lower surcharge, none, or overtime included in the salary, common for managers). Without such a written agreement the 25 % is owed, for managers too.
- *Überzeit* (ArG 9, 12, 13): hours beyond the legal weekly maximum, 45 hours for industrial workers, office and technical staff and the sales staff of large retailers, 50 hours for everyone else. Its surcharge of at least 25 % is mandatory and cannot be waived in advance; for office and technical staff and the sales staff of large retailers it is owed only beyond 60 hours of Überzeit in a calendar year (the first 60 hours fall under OR 321c). Time off of the same length instead of the surcharge needs the employee's consent. Senior executives (leitende Angestellte) are outside the Arbeitsgesetz.
- On the line: the surcharge starts at 25 (the legal rule); 0 only where a written agreement excludes it (never for Überzeit that must carry it); 50 or another figure where a GAV or the contract says so. Hours with different surcharges are separate overtime lines in the same salary. Überzeit is paid on the same line type; a separate wage type (swissdec 1065, as in bexio) may follow.
- Time off instead of pay is agreed between the parties and is not tracked: the app has no overtime balance and no time recording; the line pays hours out.
- The hourly rate: a new overtime line takes the hourly rate of the employee's salary row in effect (Settings → Persons → Salary data), the same rate the hourly wage uses; for a monthly employee, enter the hourly rate once on the salary row next to the monthly salary (new salaries still start with the monthly salary alone; the rate fills the overtime line when one is added), or type it on the line. The usual derivation is monthly salary ÷ (weekly hours × 52 / 12) with the employee's own weekly hours: 6,500 ÷ (42 × 52 / 12) = 6,500 ÷ 182 = 35.71 full time; for 80 % of a 42-hour week (33.6 hours), 5,800 ÷ (33.6 × 52 / 12) = 5,800 ÷ 145.6 = 39.84. The normal wage includes regular allowances, and where the contract has a 13th salary the overtime pay carries its share too (court practice is not uniform, and a contract can exclude it): either compute the rate on monthly salary × 13 / 12, or raise the "13th salary" line by 1/12 of the year's overtime pay, one of the two, never both.
- Contributions and forms: overtime carries AHV, ALV, UVG and KTG like salary, goes into box 1 of the Lohnausweis (Wegleitung Rz 13: everything not listed in boxes 2 to 7) and books on 5600 with the salary. It never charges the month's BVG: the pension fund's monthly amount stays as it is (occasional pay may stay outside the insured salary). For an hourly employee a vacation pay line counts the overtime too (8.33 % of hourly wage plus overtime); adding an overtime line does not add vacation pay by itself.
- When to book it: overtime of a month goes on that month's salary as an extra line; overtime paid out after the employee left is its own salary booking with only the overtime line (no BVG).

**Which expenses go through the salary — the decision in four questions.**
1. *Did the company pay the cost itself* (company card, invoice addressed to the company, direct debit)? → an ordinary expense booking (5820 for travel, 6210 for fuel of a company car, and so on) with its VAT. **Never a salary line.** The salary line is only for money owed to the employee.
2. *Did the employee pay privately and bring receipts* (train ticket, hotel, a meal on a trip, a toll, a cable bought for the office)? → the **effective** lines: travel, meals and lodging on one line, everything else on "Other expenses (effective)", each as the month's total of the expense report. The receipts are the vouchers of the booking on 5820: keep them with the expense report for ten years (OR 958f); the salary line does not attach them yet. A private car used for a business trip is reimbursed per kilometre at the Wegleitung's rate (**75 Rp/km from 1 January 2026**, 70 Rp before) against a trip log, on the travel line.
3. *Is it a fixed monthly amount without receipts* (a representation allowance for a manager who entertains clients, a car allowance, a small-expenses allowance)? → a **lump-sum** line. It is tax-free for the employee only with an **expense regulation approved by the cantonal tax office** of the company's seat (recognised by the other cantons; the SSK model regulation of Circular no. 25 is the template) or when the amount plausibly matches real costs; a lump sum beyond that is salary in the tax office's eyes, and the compensation office follows a tax-approved regulation unless it is obviously excessive (AHVV 9: reimbursements of real costs are not AHV wage). With an approved regulation, small expenses up to CHF 50 per event are covered by the lump sum and are no longer reimbursed one by one. Lump sums are always declared by amount in box 13.2.
4. *Is it a benefit in kind rather than a cost* (private use of a company car, a GA travelcard for private use, meals paid as a perk, a home-office contribution)? → not an expense line. These are fringe benefits (Lohnausweis boxes 2, 7, F/G) and not part of the salary lines yet; tell the user so and point them to their fiduciary or the Wegleitung until that phase ships. The private share of a company car (0.9 % of the purchase price per month) belongs in box 2.2, not in expenses.

**Lohnausweis.** Box 1 holds monthly salary, hourly wage, overtime, vacation pay and 13th; box 3 the bonus with "Bonus" as its kind; box 8 the total; box 13.1.1 and 13.1.2 the effective expenses by amount, box 13.2.1 to 13.2.3 the lump sums by amount. The Wegleitung lets a company with an approved regulation, or one reimbursing within the Wegleitung's own limits (Rz 52: public transport at cost, the kilometre rate, meals at cost within the model regulation's amounts, lodging against the hotel bill), mark box 13.1.1 with an "X" instead of the amount; the app prints the amount, which is always acceptable, and the "X" relief is a later setting. Lump sums never get that relief.

**VAT.** An expense line carries no VAT code: the reimbursement is booked gross, and the input VAT on the employee's receipts is not reclaimed. Where that matters (a VAT-registered company on the effective method with larger receipt-based expenses), have the company pay directly, or for the owner's own receipts book them as an expense paid from the shareholder loan (the owner paid privately) and settle the loan later: that route recovers the input VAT. A VAT code on effective expense lines is planned for a later phase.

**Typical questions.**
- "Can I pay the 13th with the December salary?" Yes: add a "13th salary" line to the December booking; it carries AHV, ALV and the insurances, no second BVG, and goes to box 1.
- "The bonus should be a separate payment." Book a second salary with only a bonus line on the payout date; no BVG, box 3.
- "How do I calculate overtime?" ("Überstunden berechnen") An employee on a monthly salary of 5,800 for 80 % of a 42-hour week worked 6 hours of overtime in September: hourly rate 5,800 ÷ 145.6 = 39.84 (enter it once on the salary row, or type it on the line); an "Overtime" line on the September salary: 6 h × 39.84 + 25 % = CHF 298.80, with AHV, ALV and the insurances, no BVG, box 1. Never a second hourly wage line at a raised rate or a bonus: the payslip must name the overtime and its surcharge.
- "My employee drove 320 km with her own car." 320 × 0.75 = CHF 240.00 on the travel line (2026 rate), the trip log as voucher.
- "Flat CHF 300 a month for client dinners?" Only tax-free with an approved regulation; otherwise expect the tax office to treat it as salary. Without a regulation, reimburse the dinners against receipts instead.
- "Hotel paid with the company card." Not a salary line: an expense booking on 5820 with the hotel's VAT.
- "Wrong amount on a booked expense line." Edit the salary (rebook); if its payment is already booked, undo the payment first, as with any salary change.