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Managing the employee portal and change requests

Send access links, track their status, then apply or reject what your employees ask you to correct.

Payroll7 min read
Table of contents+

Opening the employee portal takes one button: you send a link, your employee views their documents, and all that comes back to you are the correction requests they submit. This guide covers both sides of the job: handing out access, then handling the requests.

1. Prerequisites

  • The Payroll module must be enabled under My accountModules (see Manage your subscription and modules).
  • The employee needs an address in the Email field of their record, Identity card: that is where the link goes.
  • Nothing else. The portal automatically picks up the logo and colour set in My companyBranding.

2. Sending the link

  1. Open the employee's record and scroll down to the Employee portal section.
  2. Click Send link. The message Link sent by email confirms it went out.
  3. From the Employees list, the send icon at the end of the row does exactly the same thing without opening the record.

Once a first link has been issued, the button becomes Resend link and the section recalls the date of the last send along with the expiry date. The email goes out in your current interface language (English, French, German or Italian) and carries your company's logo and colour. Resending creates a new link without cancelling the previous one: each expires on its own 90 days.

Finding the employee portal address

Each company has its own employee portal address, in the form app.bill-alps.ch/portal/your-company. It is in My companyBranding, Employee portal address card: Copy URL copies it and Open portal displays it. This is where an employee requests a link themselves. To change it, edit Portal slug (lowercase letters, digits and hyphens), then click Save address: links already sent keep working, but the old address can no longer be used to request one.

3. Reading the "Portal" column

The employee list includes a Portal column whose icon sums up the state of the last link sent. Hover it for the details:

  • Email address missing (grey): nothing can be sent while the record has no email.
  • No link sent (grey): the employee has never had access.
  • Access active (green): the link is valid; the tooltip gives the send date and the expiry date.
  • Access inactive (orange): the last link has expired. Resending is enough to restore access.

4. Receiving requests

  • An email reaches you on every request, with the employee's name, the number of fields concerned and a Review the request button.
  • A banner appears at the top of the employee list: n pending change request(s). Click it to review them.
  • The Change requests page sorts everything into two sections, Pending and Handled.

5. Reviewing a request

Clicking a request opens the detail: each field concerned is shown with its old and new value, followed by the employee's message and the supporting documents, which you click to download. One glance is enough to check that an IBAN change comes with a document.

6. Applying or rejecting

  • Apply changes writes every requested field at once. There is no partial approval: to keep only part of it, reject the request and correct the record by hand.
  • Reject reveals a Rejection reason (optional) field, passed on as-is to the employee, then Confirm rejection. No data is touched, and the employee can send a corrected request.
  • Either way, the employee is notified by email in the language of the link they use, and the request moves to Handled with its badge.

An applied request can change the payroll calculation: every field counts, except email and IBAN. Bill Alps then automatically recalculates that employee's payslips with the Draft status, for the current month and the following months. Validated or declared payslips and drafts of past months do not change: if they need correcting, that remains a manual operation.

7. Good practice

  • Send the link as soon as someone is hired, together with the first payslip: that is when an employee actually checks their data.
  • Ask for a supporting document for sensitive changes: AVS number, IBAN, marital status, permit type.
  • Handle requests before generating the month's payslips, to avoid a recompute after the fact.
  • An employee who has lost their link can request a new one themselves: no need to come through you.

To know exactly what your employee sees once they are in, read The employee portal, seen by your employees. And if you have not issued any payslips yet, start with Generate a payslip or a monthly batch.

Report a move

Move requests show their date and payroll impact. The withholding-tax canton changes the following month. Validated payslips remain unchanged and are flagged for review. Check permits and attestations when the country changes and report the change to the tax authority within eight days.