Base salary quantities, additional salaries, and withholdings can be imported into Merit Palk from a CSV file. If the source data is prepared in Excel (XLS/XLSX) format, the file can easily be saved as a CSV file.
To import salaries and withholdings, open the menu:
Payroll → Payroll sheets → on the payroll sheet, click the “Import salaries” button
CSV file requirements
Encoding: UTF-8
Field separator: semicolon (;)
Decimal separator in numbers: comma (,)
File structure
Column | Description | Notes |
Column 1 (A) | Personal identification code or contract import ID | Required field. If the employee has multiple contracts, use the contract import ID |
Column 2 (B) | Free-text column (for example, employee name) |
|
Column 3 (C) | Free-text column (for example, salary type name) |
|
Column 4 (D) | Import ID of salary type or withholdings | Required field. Withholdings codes must be entered with a minus sign |
Column 5 (E) | Salary/withholdings rate or amount | At least one of columns 5 or 6 must be filled |
Column 6 (F) | Quantity For a fixed salary amount, it may be left empty. | At least one of columns 5 or 6 must be filled |
Column 7 (G) | Empty column | Required field. Do not enter any data here |
Column 8 (H) | Department code |
|
Column 9 (I) | Cost center code | PRO feature |
Column 10 (J) | Project code | PRO feature |
Column 11 (K) | Standard working hours |
|
Column 12 (L) | Standard working days |
|
Additional instructions
At least one of columns 5 (amount) or 6 (quantity) must be filled.
If the salary type calculation method is “Amount × Quantity × Coefficient”, both amount and quantity must be filled in the file. The coefficient is added separately in the program.
Column names in the first row of the file must be included if not all data is imported at once.
If all columns contain data, headers are not required.All columns starting from column 13 will be ignored.
The file may contain empty rows (for example, at the end), which will be ignored.
💡The CSV file must always be created 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.
Employee search logic
The program first searches for the employee by contract import ID.
If no match is found, the personal identification code is used.
If the employee has more than one contract, the contract import ID must be used (defined in the employee’s contract card).
Sample file
You can download a sample file here