Run payroll for one director and two employees

You run a GmbH or UG, pay yourself as managing director and employ two people. Here is the route from three salary profiles to an approved month, a wage tax filing and reconciled accounting.

Your route: Employer → People → Payroll → Tax reports → payments → Ledger. During the current beta, the filing step includes a review with Norman Support. A test preview alone does not file the return.

If you have only a paid managing director, use the shorter guide. An Einzelunternehmen with employees follows a different owner-pay and bookkeeping setup.

Our example

All three people work the full month with fixed salaries, no absences, bonuses or other special cases. The employees have confirmed compulsory statutory insurance. The director's insurance status has been established separately.

Norman calculates each person's deductions from their own tax and insurance data. The €12,000 is gross salary, not the amount to transfer to the team or the Finanzamt.

1. Set up the company once

Open Payroll in the correct company and choose Employer. Record the employer numbers, insurance participation and contact details requested by the form, using your registration notices.

Check that the company's tax number, federal state and address are complete. The company also needs its SKR03 or SKR04 chart of accounts set up so payroll can post into the same books used for the annual close.

Have the employee registration and current tax/insurance evidence ready. Recording that evidence in Norman does not itself register the employment with the authorities.

2. Add the three people

In People, choose Add director for yourself, then Add employee twice. Enter the agreed gross, employment start, personal details and tax data for each person.

For the employees, complete their SV details from the fund's confirmed rates and participation evidence, and record the contractual work schedule. For the director, select the confirmed insurance profile; the director title does not by itself mean exemption from social insurance.

Check that all three profiles are active for the example month. You now have one director and two employees, not three director profiles.

3. Calculate and approve the month

Open Payroll, select the month and year, and choose Calculate month. In this example, leave the absence journal empty because nobody was absent.

Check the three lines. Gross should total €12,000; also review each person's taxes, employee contributions and payout, plus the total employer cost. Employer cost includes the displayed employer contributions and levies in addition to gross salary.

Confirm your review and choose Approve month. Then open Documents, select each person and check their payslip. This completes the payroll calculation for the month.

4. Prepare and file the wage tax return

Open Tax reports, select the filing year and the period applicable to your company, then choose Compute. For a monthly filer, select the example month. For a quarterly filer, approve all three months first and select the quarter.

Review the resulting Lohnsteuer-Anmeldung. For this full-month example it must contain all three people, including the director. The return combines their withheld wage tax, solidarity surcharge and church tax; it does not transfer their gross salaries to the Finanzamt.

Choose ELSTER test preview, check the result, then use Contact support to submit. Give support the company, period and prepared return, confirm the agreed filing step, and obtain the actual transmission result. Keep the filing protocol. See the filing and accounting checklist for what counts as completed submission.

5. Pay and match the amounts

Arrange the three net salary payments through your bank, plus the tax and health-insurer payments according to their due amounts and dates. Payroll approval and tax submission do not initiate these bank payments. Handle required social-insurance reports through your established reporting process.

When the bank transactions appear in Norman, assign them to the corresponding payroll liabilities and use the salary, tax and fund payment views to match them. The filing and accounting guide lists the accounts and where to check the remaining balances.

6. Check that payroll is in your books

Open Ledger for the month. The payroll calculation creates salary expenses, employer social costs and the related payables; approval protects that reviewed result. Filing the tax return is a separate step. You do not import the payslips again to create the expense.

In the example, salary expenses total €12,000 before employer contributions. Director salary and employee salaries use their respective expense accounts. The bank payments clear payables rather than adding another €12,000 of salary expense.

The month is ready when the three payslips are correct, the wage tax filing is evidenced, and actual payments reconcile to the amounts due or explain the remaining balance. Repeat this for each month. At year-end, review the Ledger and continue to annual close; payroll costs are already in those books.