Recording bonuses and benefits in kind — without tax pitfalls

What the “Bonuses” page is for

Someone stepped in on New Year's Eve, saved the stocktake or is celebrating ten years in the business. You want to recognise that with money or a voucher — and the amount should end up on the payslip, not on a note in the office. That is exactly what the Bonuses page is for.

There, Zeitflex records the payment, classifies it for tax purposes and passes it to the export with the month-end close as a separate wage type. The payroll itself is still done by your payroll software or your tax adviser — Zeitflex prepares it.

Only owners and management see the page. Employees do not see their bonuses in the app; the tax adviser only sees the result in the payroll export.

Switching on the module

The page only appears in the menu once the associated module is active. In the industry templates Hospitality & hotels and Fitness, beauty & wellness it is preset; everywhere else it is off.

1. Open Settings → Business → Modules.
2. Flip the switch. For historical reasons it still bears the name Tip distribution — tip distribution itself no longer exists since August 2026; the switch now only controls bonuses.
3. The item Bonuses now appears in the menu in the Money & reports group.

The module is included in every plan, including the free one.

Creating a bonus

1. Open Bonuses and select Month and Year at the top.
2. Click Create bonus.
3. Select the Person, enter a Reason (at least two characters) and the Amount in euros.
4. Select the Type of benefit — more on that in a moment.
5. As soon as person, amount and type are set, the dialog shows the check: tax-free possible or taxable, plus counts towards the mini-job limit or does not count, and the legal reference.
6. The Mark as tax-free tick box can only be ticked if the check allows it.
7. Add to payroll prep right away is preselected. If you untick it, the bonus remains a draft.
8. Create.

Every creation and every change is recorded in the business's change log: on creation with the amount, category, legal reference and whether a ticked “tax-free” box was accepted or discarded; on changes with the amount, labelling and status — each before and after.

The four types — and what happens for tax purposes

Why the “tax-free” tick box does not always work

The tick box is a request, not a decision. The decision is made via the category: for a cash bonus or another benefit, the tick box is disabled and the reason is shown next to it. And even if someone sets it by a detour, the server only saves it if the check allows it. You then see the message: “Bonus created — but NOT as tax-free.”

The reason is liability. A cash bonus labelled as tax-free would bypass the wage tax deduction — and the employer is liable for that (§ 42d EStG). The same check runs again when you change the amount later, and a third time at the month-end close.

Benefits in kind: 50 euros is an exemption limit, not an allowance

For this, Zeitflex adds up all benefits in kind of the same person in the same month that are not cancelled — drafts included. At the month-end close, only the rows added to payroll count, in the order in which you created them.

Draft, added to payroll, cancelled

Every bonus has one of three statuses, and you change it directly in the row:

• Draft — is in the list, does not go into the month-end close. Click Add to payroll to change that.
• Added to payroll — appears in the month-end close for the person as “Bonuses tax-free” or “Bonuses taxable” and goes into the export as a separate wage type. **Remove from payroll** turns it back into a draft.
• Cancelled — the amount no longer counts anywhere, frees up the month's exemption limit again for benefits in kind, and the row remains, struck through, as a record. Cancel asks first; Undo cancellation turns the row back into a draft.

At the bottom of the page, the Annual overview shows the total of tax-free and taxable bonuses for each month. It deliberately shows totals and no ranking per person.

Mini-jobbers: what counts

Bonuses and other benefits are earnings and count towards the earnings limit for marginal employment — €556 in 2025, €603 in 2026. A benefit in kind or a token gift within the exemption limit does not count. The dialog shows this for every bonus.

How it gets into the export

Bonuses are never included in the gross pay for working time. They appear in separate columns in the CSV export and as separate wage types in the DATEV export — preset to 410 for taxable and 420 for tax-free bonuses. Only your tax adviser knows which number really applies to your business as their client; you change the mapping as described under Setting up the DATEV export.

What Zeitflex does not do

• Zeitflex calculates no wage tax and no social security contributions. It provides the amount, labelling and wage type; the final tax treatment is decided in payroll.
• Zeitflex does not value benefits in kind. It takes the amount you enter.
• Zeitflex does not check the occasion. Whether an anniversary really is one, you know.
• Tip distribution no longer exists. Where tip amounts from earlier months are still present, they remain visible in the annual overview and the month-end close; no new ones are created.

Need more help?

If a bonus does not appear in the month-end close, first check its status — only rows added to payroll go into it; support can help with everything else. How the close works as a whole is described under Month-end close in 10 minutes, and what applies to mini-jobbers under Mini-job limit.