Monitoring payroll costs against the budget

The Budget monitoring tab compares, month after month, the payroll costs actually paid with each unit’s budget (department, sub-company or cost centre depending on the settings) and projects the year-end result. This article explains how to read the tab, enter unit budgets, import payroll actuals and receive overrun alerts. It is intended for payroll, finance and HR teams.

Before you start #

• The “Payroll cost monitoring” permission opens the tab at the Access level (reading unit totals); the Execute level allows entering budgets and importing actuals, and gives access to named amounts. By default: Access and Execute for the Administrator, Payroll Manager and Accounting roles; Access only for the HR Manager role.
• The fiscal year must exist in Multi-year & funding; otherwise the budgets dialog asks you to create it there first.
• The unit axis (Department by default), the charge rate and the alert threshold are set in the module settings, Monitoring card.

What the page shows #

Top left, the Fiscal year list offers the previous, current and next year. Below it, a row of chips filters the view: All units, then one chip per unit. Payroll of contracts without a unit appears under “Unassigned”. The filter applies to the indicators, the chart and the split by group; the unit table always shows every unit, and clicking a unit name in that table also applies the filter.

The indicators #

Indicator	What it measures
Payroll spent · N months	The cumulative cost (gross plus charges) of the elapsed months, compared with the budget to date
Year-end projection	The cost of the year: actuals of imported months, an estimate for elapsed months without an import, computed payroll for the months ahead; compared with the budget
FTE	The sum of activity rates in the reference month (the current month, December for a past fiscal year, January for a future one)
Annual cost per FTE	The projection divided by the FTE

“Elapsed months” are the months before the current month: in January, the indicator therefore shows 0 months.

The chart and tables #

• Cumulative budget, actual and projection: three cumulative curves, month by month; the projection starts from the last actual month.
• Payroll by employee group: the computed payroll for the fiscal year, excluding charges, split by employee group; contracts without a group form the “No group” share.
• Budget tracking by unit: for each unit, Budget, Spent (estimated months included), Projection, Gap (in %) and Status. A closed unit is marked “closed”.

Status	Meaning
On track	The projection does not exceed the budget
Watch	The projection exceeds the budget, but not beyond the alert threshold
Overrun	The projection exceeds the budget beyond the alert threshold (1% by default)
No budget	The unit has no budget for the fiscal year

The data quality box #

An orange box appears above the indicators when a calculation is incomplete: contracts with no salary entered, no reference hours, hourly with no rate or hours, or in a currency with no exchange rate (they are left out of the calculation); no charge rate set (the computed payroll is then gross); elapsed months with no imported actuals (estimated from contracts).

How each month is counted #

• Elapsed and imported month: the actuals plus the charges in the file; if the file has none, the configured charge rate is added.
• Elapsed month with no import: payroll computed from contracts, flagged as estimated in the chart subtitle and in the data quality box.
• Month ahead: payroll computed from contracts.

If no unit has a budget, the monthly budget of the “All units” view is the fiscal year’s planned payroll divided by twelve.

Entering unit budgets #

1. Click Unit budgets. The dialog reminds you of the unit axis and states “Charges included. The annual amount is spread over twelve months, which you can then adjust one by one.”
2. For each unit, enter the annual amount then click Spread over 12 months: the amount is split into twelve equal months, the last one absorbing the rounding.
3. To adjust a month, expand the unit’s line by clicking its name, change the months you need, then click Save months.
4. Close with Done. The total is shown under “Units total”.

As soon as one unit has a budget, the fiscal year’s planned payroll (Multi-year tab) becomes the sum of the unit budgets. If the “Unit budget” Workflows approval workflow is active, each budget entered is sent for approval: the line shows “awaiting approval” and the amount only counts once a second officer has accepted it.

Budgets entered under another axis are set aside and come back if that axis is restored. Entry is closed when the fiscal year is budgeted by position, or when the budget has been submitted or allocated (see below).

Importing payroll actuals #

Actuals are imported per employee and per month, from a file exported from your payroll software. Two formats are recognised from the header row; the dialog’s Download the template and Pay item template links provide a template for each.

Format	Required columns	Optional columns
By totals	employee ID, month, gross	(employer) charges
By pay item	employee ID, month, pay item, amount	label, account, points

Headers are recognised in English, French, German and Italian, regardless of capitals and accents. The month is written, for example, 2026-03 or 03/2026; amounts accept an apostrophe as thousands separator (1’240’000) and a decimal comma.

1. Click Import actuals and choose the file in CSV or Excel file (.csv, .txt, .xlsx or .xls; for Excel, only the first sheet is read). For a CSV, choose the CSV encoding if needed.
2. Click Simulate. Illizeo shows the lines ready to import, those that would replace an already imported month and those rejected, with the reason. Nothing is written yet.
3. Click Import to confirm. The button is only active after a simulation with at least one valid line.

A month already imported for an employee is replaced; a duplicate in the file is rejected. An unknown pay item is created “to classify” and does not count until it is classified (Pay items & charges button).

The import log #

The Imports button lists past imports: date, author, file, accepted lines and status. For each import, Rejections (n) downloads the rejected lines with their reason, and Cancel undoes the import: its created lines are deleted and its replaced lines get their previous value back. Cancellation is refused if a more recent import has rewritten those lines: cancel that one first.

Automatic import via SFTP #

Your payroll software can drop its files on the company SFTP server (Settings › Manage Illizeo › SFTP server). In the module settings, SFTP import of actuals card, switch on Poll the folder every hour and enter the Folder polled. Every hour, CSV files in that folder are imported as from the screen, then moved to “traites” or “refuses”. These imports appear in the log with the author “SFTP”. If polling fails, the recipients of monitoring alerts are notified, once a day per reason.

Overrun alerts #

Every morning, and after each import or cancellation, Illizeo checks the current fiscal year. When a unit moves to the “Overrun” status, a notification is sent, once per unit and per month, then again if the gap worsens by at least one point. It goes to people who hold the “Payroll cost monitoring” permission at the Execute level and to members of the groups chosen in the settings (“Alerts also to these groups”), provided they can read monitoring: a group widens the audience, never the permissions. Each person receives the alert in the bell and by e-mail according to their preferences (“Budget overrun”).

Going further #

Budget by position #

At the Execute level, Budget by position builds the budget position by position rather than by unit. After Budget by position, each unit’s budget becomes the sum of its lines. The dialog offers Initialise from contracts, Carry over previous year, Revalue all, Add a line and Add an envelope (replacements, overtime, on-call duty, bonuses, other). Back to units restores entry by unit.

Request & allocation #

Request & allocation submits the budget for allocation. At the Execute level of monitoring, Submit the budget locks it until the allocation (with a “Comment for the allocation (optional)”); Withdraw cancels the request. People who hold the “Multi-year & funding” permission at the Execute level decide on each unit (Accepted, Partial, Rejected), may set an “Overall allocation (optional)”, then click Allocate: monitoring then follows the allocated budget. Reopen the budget makes it editable again.

Variance N/N-1 #

Variance N/N-1 breaks down the payroll variance between the fiscal year and the previous one: headcount effect, turnover (noria) effect, activity rate effect, general measures, individual measures, seniority and steps, carry-over effect, charges effect and unexplained remainder, in total and by unit. Units with fewer than three people are grouped together.

Pay items & charges #

Pay items & charges classifies imported pay items (salary, envelope, employer charge, ignored) and shows, under Rates by category, the actual charge rate by group and contract type. These rates only apply if the Charge source setting is “Actual rates by category”.

Good to know #

• The file is read in your browser: Illizeo keeps only the lines, not the file. An import holds at most 20,000 lines.
• A month counts as imported as soon as one line exists for it. Import complete files: an employee missing from an imported month counts as zero for that month.
• Clearing a unit’s annual amount then clicking Spread over 12 months deletes its budget, without confirmation.
• Each click on Simulate leaves an entry in the import log.
• Alerts only cover the current calendar year.