Which absence type to choose

The absence type decides three separate things: whether the salary keeps running, who pays for the days if the employer does not, and what you still owe the health insurer. Norman never infers any of them from the type alone; each unpaid type asks you to confirm the facts first.

Types where the salary keeps running

Paid vacation: the fixed monthly salary covers the days. You confirm that once. The days are also counted against the vacation entitlement.

Dual study programme and Assignment abroad (exempt from accident insurance): recorded for the record; pay is untouched. Accident-insurance treatment is not modelled.

Employment ban (§ 18 MuSchG): the employer owes Mutterschutzlohn, so the salary keeps running. You record the reference period the average was taken from. These expenses belong to the U2 scheme, and Norman prepares a U2 overview from the recorded ban. See U1/U2 reimbursement preparation.

Sickness

Sickness runs the Entgeltfortzahlung clock: six weeks of continued pay from the onset you record, reduced by the days already used for the same illness. Days inside the waiting period or beyond the entitlement are not silently paid; you either correct the evidence or confirm that the health insurer pays Krankengeld for them.

A sickness entry also carries a reason, and the reason changes what happens:

• Other reason (standard): the ordinary case, Krankengeld after the six weeks.
• Work accident: the six weeks are unchanged, but the days after them are funded by Verletztengeld from the accident insurer. An incapacity of more than three days has to be reported to the accident insurer under § 193 SGB VII. Norman flags that; it does not file it.
• Accompanying an inpatient (§ 44b SGB V) and Critically ill child (§ 45 Abs. 4 SGB V): these are not the employee's own incapacity, so there is no continued pay at all. The entitlement fields disappear and the entry is treated as days without a wage claim from the first day.

Types where the wage claim lapses

Unpaid leave, child sickness, short-term care leave with or without the care support allowance, care leave, parental leave, lawful and unlawful strike, unexcused absence, and federal volunteer or voluntary military service.

All of them reduce the fixed salary by the same method: the unpaid calendar days divided by the actual calendar days of that month. Several unpaid causes in one month produce one reduction over the union of their days, not one reduction each.

Each asks you to confirm three things: that the wage claim really lapsed for those days, that the agreed calendar-day reduction applies, and that the employer pays nothing for them. Where an insurer pays a benefit (child sickness, short-term care with the allowance), a fourth confirmation names that benefit.

What each one leaves for you

Norman does not send social-insurance notifications. Each unpaid type tells you which one is now due:

• Unpaid leave, strike, lockout, unexcused absence, short-term care without the allowance: § 7 Abs. 3 SGB IV keeps the employment insured for at most one month counted from the first day of the interruption. Past that, a deregistration and a later re-registration are due.
• Child sickness, short-term care with the allowance: a wage replacement benefit is paid, so that one-month rule does not apply.
• Parental leave, care leave, voluntary service: § 7 Abs. 3 SGB IV explicitly does not cover these; the insurance status itself changes.

Why this matters for the annual U mark

Every stretch without a substantial wage claim is a candidate for the U interruption count on the annual wage tax certificate, including causes other than sickness. That is why the unpaid types all feed the interruption register, and why the annual count waits until you confirm that the absence journal is complete for the year: the register cannot see an interruption that was never recorded.

For the next steps, see sick pay and the U mark.