Record an absence (sickness, accident, paternity leave…)

An absence is always recorded per employee. It drives the allowance computation (sickness/accident daily allowances, APG allowances): once recorded, Bill Alps automatically proposes the matching lines on the payslip for the affected month(s).

Video example: a 2-week paternity leave. The February and March payslips are already created: Bill Alps detects this and offers to update them automatically (interface in French).

1. Open an employee's absences

Open the Employees menu in the sidebar.
On the employee's row, click the Absences icon (calendar), or open their profile then the Absences and payslips cardAbsences button.
You land on the employee's Absences page, which lists all their absences, from the most recent to the oldest. The selector at the top of the page lets you switch to another employee.

2. Declare the absence

Click New absence.
Pick the Reason (see the list below).
Fill in the Period: a Start date (required) and an End date. Leave the end date empty for an ongoing absence.
Optionally add internal Notes.
Click Declare absence.

3. Pick the right reason

The reason determines the tax treatment applied (whether the line is subject to social charges and to withholding tax), and you do not have to tick anything manually:

Sickness daily allowance: with collective daily sickness allowance insurance (IJM), the employer maintains the salary during the waiting period, then the insurer pays the allowances, which are exempt from social charges and taxed at source. Without IJM insurance, Bill Alps instead proposes salary continuation at 100% following the statutory scale of your canton (Bernese, Zurich or Basel), then nothing once that entitlement is used up.
Accident daily allowance: the day of the accident and the 2 following days are borne by the employer, at 80% of salary and subject to social charges (Accident waiting days line, created automatically: it is not a reason you pick). After that come the LAA daily allowances (accident insurance) at 80%, capped at CHF 324.80/day in 2026, exempt from social charges and taxed at source.
Maternity allowance (APG), Paternity allowance (APG), Adoption allowance (APG), Care allowance (APG) and Service allowance (APG): 80% allowance, max CHF 220/day, subject to social charges and withholding tax. Bill Alps limits it to 98 days for maternity and care, and to 14 days for paternity and adoption; beyond that, only the salary deduction remains. The service allowance follows the length of the service, with a minimum of CHF 69/day. If the canton of the payslip is Geneva, maternity follows the cantonal scheme: 112 days, from CHF 69 to CHF 329.60/day.
Continued salary (art. 324a CO): salary maintained by the employer, normally subject.
Paid short leave (art. 329h CO): salary maintained at 100%, normally subject.
Unpaid leave: salary deduction with no allowance. The month's AVS, LPP and IS bases go down, and the year's 13th salary is reduced pro rata.

Each absence first produces a negative salary deduction line (Absence deduction), followed by the allowance lines for the reason.

For Paternity allowance (APG) and Adoption allowance (APG), an Isolated days checkbox is displayed. Tick it if the leave is taken in separate days: APG then pays 7 daily allowances for 5 days of leave, 14 at most. Declare these days as a single period. The box unticks itself if the period contains whole weeks, which correspond to continuous leave.

Settings in two places influence these calculations: in My companySalaries, the Absences and daily allowances card, the Collective daily sickness allowance insurance (IJM/KTG) and the caps; on the employee record, the Social insurance card, under More options, the Sickness allowance rate (%) (80% if the field is empty) and the Allowance waiting days (none if the field is empty). See also Set up payroll.

4. Overrides (optional)

If your insurer communicates precise amounts, expand the Overrides (optional) section and fill in:

Allowance CHF/day: the exact daily allowance. It replaces the rate and the statutory cap, and is not reduced by a partial incapacity. It does not apply to Continued salary or Paid short leave.
Waiting days: the number of waiting days borne by the employer. It only concerns the Sickness daily allowance reason with IJM insurance.
Rate (%): the compensation rate.
Incapacity (%): for a partial incapacity, for example 50. The salary deduction and the allowances are reduced in the same proportion. If left empty, this field counts as 100%.

These values replace the proposed computation.

Video example: Jean is covered by the CCNT. For sickness absence, a 70% rate and a 90-day waiting period fall outside the agreement references (minimum 80%, maximum 60 days); Bill Alps lists both points to check on the payslip (interface in French).

5. Updating the payslips

After an absence is created, edited or deleted, Bill Alps compares the existing payslips for the period with the up-to-date absence lines:

If a payslip no longer matches, an assistant opens it for editing, payslip by payslip (Payslip 1 / 2). The up-to-date lines appear under Automatically proposed and every value stays editable. Click Save changes to keep them, or Skip to leave the payslip as it is.
If the payslip is already validated, saving it puts it back into draft. For a past month, if the payslip has already been validated, sent or paid, Bill Alps also offers a correction line on the next payslip.
An Unpaid leave can also add to the assistant the payslip of the month in which the 13th salary is paid.
For a month that has no payslip yet, the proposed lines appear when you create that month's payslip with New payslip.
A payslip created with Batch create does not pick up the absences. Open it afterwards with Edit to add the proposed lines.

6. Tracking absences

The table shows Period, Reason, Days, Status and Notes.
Advance the status right in the list: DeclaredApprovedPaid.
Filter by status and by year to find an absence.

The status is for tracking: it does not change the proposed lines, and the employee sees it in their portal. The Days column counts calendar days and stays empty until the end date is known. Click a row to edit the absence, or the trash icon to delete it after confirmation.

7. Long absence alerts

On the payslip, Bill Alps flags certain consequences of an absence. These are reminders: it is up to you to decide, with your fund or your trustee if needed.

LPP premium: if LPP premium waiver (days) is filled in on the Absences and daily allowances card, Bill Alps proposes a reduced deduction once that period has elapsed, during a continuous sickness or accident.
APG leave: the LPP base stays at the normal contractual level, unless reduced on request in Override computed amounts.
Family allowances: after the month in which a continuous incapacity starts and the 3 following months, a warning reminds you that entitlement normally lapses. Check your fund's decision and adjust if needed in Override computed amounts.
AVS: after 2 consecutive months without AVS-subject salary, a warning points to a risk of contribution gaps.

To create the month's payslips next, follow Generate a payslip or a monthly batch.