Base salary agreements can be imported into Merit Palk from a CSV file.
If the source data is prepared in Excel (XLS/XLSX) format, it can be easily saved as a CSV file.
This import functionality is available only for users of the PRO package of Merit Palk.
To import base salary agreements, open the menu: Settings → Data import from file → Import payterms
CSV file requirements
General settings
Encoding: UTF-8
Field separator: semicolon (;)
File structure
Column | Description | Notes |
Column 1 (A) | Contract import ID or personal identification code | required field |
Column 2 (B) | Salary agreement start date | required field |
Column 3 (C) | Base salary agreement type import ID | required field |
Column 4 (D) | Number of hours | required field |
Column 5 (E) | Amount/base salary rate | required field |
Column 6 (F) | Auto timekeeping (yes/no) | required field |
Column 7 (G) | Full-time setting (yes/no) |
|
Column 8 (H) | GL Account |
|
Column 9 (I) | Department code |
|
Column 10 (J) | Cost center code |
|
Column 11 (K) | Project code |
|
Notes
The import ID for the base salary agreement type (column 3/C) is not the payment type code. It is defined in the salary type card under the Import ID field.
The contract import ID (column 1/A) is used when an employee has multiple contracts. The ID is defined in the contract card under the field Import ID.
Additional instructions
Only salary agreements with a start date later than the employee’s latest valid agreement can be imported.
Agreements with an already existing start date cannot be imported, and existing records will not be overwritten.
For automatic working time calculation and full-time settings:
yes – the setting is active;
no – the setting is not active.
During import, it is not possible to add detailed dimension allocations to the salary.
The salary can only be allocated 100% to one department, cost center, and/or project. More detailed allocation must be added manually later in the program.Column names in the first row of the file should be included only if not all data columns are imported at once (for example account, department, cost center, project).
If all columns are filled, column headers are not needed.The file may contain empty rows at the end, which the program will ignore.
All columns starting from column 12 will be ignored.
💡The CSV file must always be generated from an Excel (XLS or XLSX) file. If changes are required in the import data file, they must be made in the original Excel file, not in the CSV file.
After making the changes, save the Excel file again in CSV format and use the new CSV file for import.
API integration
Base salary agreement import is also available for PRO package users via API integration.
More information: Merit Palk API documentation
📁 Sample file
You can download a sample file here