A night shift begins on Saturday evening, ends on Sunday morning and is extended at short notice to cover another site. For the Payroll security service, this immediately raises a specific question: which hours count as night work, which as Sunday work, and which allowances need to be processed separately in the monthly payroll?
It is precisely at this point that uncertainties arise in many security companies. Rosters, approved actual hours, locations, public holidays, collective agreements or federal state regulations, base pay, Wage type, and tax and Social security must all align professionally for bonuses to be accurately calculated.
The BAS supports companies in the guarding and security sector with ongoing payroll involving variable shift times, types of bonuses, and corrections. Bonus times must be clearly assigned before payroll processing according to the type of time, location, and Wage type.
In the security sector, shift allowances frequently arise from working hours that fall outside of standard daytime hours. Night work, Sunday work and work on public holidays are particularly relevant. In addition, there are collective bargaining or employment contract regulations which can vary depending on the federal state, activity, type of deployment or collective bargaining region.
In the guarding and security sector, collectively agreed wages, Collective agreement, pay grade and federal state often play a role together. Particularly in property protection, the exact same working hours can be assessed differently if the activity, place of deployment or collective agreement basis changes.
Tariff documents from the BDSW, ver.di or the Federal Association of the Security Industry frequently provide guidance in practice. For the specific payroll run, checking each individual shift remains crucial, as security staff can be assigned differently depending on the property, working hours and wage bracket.
Night workNight hours must be clearly identifiable by time so that the appropriate supplement and billing item can be checked.
Sunday workingFor shifts spanning across calendar days, Sunday portions must be available separately from Saturday and night-time portions.
Working on a bank holidayThe place of work also determines which public holiday logic applies to the specific payroll accounting case.
Therefore, for Payroll, it is crucial which type of supplement is involved and on what basis it is calculated. A night work supplement follows a different examination logic than a Sunday or public holiday supplement. In the case of public holidays, the place of work also comes into play because public holidays apply differently depending on the federal state.
Security service allowances require classification by time type, location, collective agreement or federal state reference, and Wage type. For the payroll run, what matters is whether the respective working hours were actually worked, whether they can be assigned to a specific time type, and which Wage type is provided for this in the accounting system.
| Type of surcharge | What needs to be checked | Implications for payroll accounting | Typical consequence of an error |
|---|---|---|---|
| Night work | Start, End, Night-time proportion, Actual time | Night hours must be assigned their own supplement logic and corresponding Wage type. | Night shift allowances are being paid as normal working hours or at the wrong rate. |
| Sunday working | Sunday proportion, shift progression, actual working hours | For shifts spanning across day boundaries, Sunday hours must be separately identifiable. | Saturday, Sunday and night-shift components are mixed together. |
| Working on a bank holiday | Place of work, federal state, public holiday, actual time | The holiday entitlement must match the actual place of work and the relevant regulations. | A public holiday supplement is calculated incorrectly or is missing entirely. |
| Collective wage supplements | Collective agreement, collective pay agreement, salary group, federal state, activity, type of deployment | Collective allowances must be considered separately from statutory and tax checkpoints. | Tariff guidelines are lumped together or mixed up with Sunday, public holiday and night work rules. |
| Correction or recalculation cases | amended actual time, retrospective approval, corrected deployment location | Changes may affect the current payroll run or the following month. | Arrears, retroactive calculations or unclear monthly reports arise. |
The table categorises the main types of surcharges by check point, billing sequence and typical sequence of errors.
Surcharges are thus a concrete building block of Payroll in the security service. They have a direct impact on the payroll, the auditing of Lohnarten and monthly personnel cost analyses.
The duty roster shows how a shift was planned. However, for the calculation of allowances, it is the actual time worked and approved that counts. Particularly in security services, shifts can be extended, assignments postponed or site changes arise at short notice.
A typical case is a shift from Saturday evening to Sunday morning. The rota may only show a single continuous period. For payroll purposes, however, the hours must be split according to time proportions: working time before midnight, working time after midnight, night-shift proportion, Sunday proportion and, where applicable, further collective agreement overtime or premium rates.
The place of work is also relevant for payroll. In the case of work on public holidays, it may depend on which federal state the work actually took place in. If an employee is sent to a different site at short notice, the actual place of work with the approved actual time counts for checking the public holiday supplement.
For the monthly run, this means that the start, end, duration, location and type of allowance must match up before payroll processing. If any of this information is missing, it will lead to queries, corrections or retroactive calculations.
Supplements for Sunday, public holiday and night work are frequently referred to as SFN supplements. For tax purposes, such supplements can be privileged if they are paid for Sunday, public holiday or night work actually performed in addition to the base wage.
Collective allowances from a master collective agreement or remuneration collective agreement are to be separated from tax-related SFN rules. For payroll accounting, what matters is whether a night shift allowance, Sunday allowance or public holiday allowance is classified under a collective agreement, employment contract or tax law.
ClassificationTax treatment and contribution assessment must be considered separately in the payroll run. For this purpose, the basic wage, type of supplement and billing item must remain traceable.
For companies in the guarding and security sector, it is important to separate this tax consideration from the Social security to be separated. An allowance may be treated differently for tax purposes than for social security contribution purposes. Exemption from social security contributions is more narrowly defined and depends, among other things, on the underlying basic wage.
In practice, this means that the base wage, the type of allowance and the billing item must remain separately verifiable. If an allowance is only recorded as a general surcharge, it is difficult to trace later which tax and social security treatment was applied.
The focus here is on the payroll logic prior to the pay run: premium type, actual time, location, base wage and Wage type must be a functional match.
Prior to running the payroll, the surcharge-relevant data must be prepared in such a way that it can be technically verified. This includes the precise allocation by time type, location of deployment, billing position and approved actual time.
Of particular importance are the start and end of the shift, the actual duration, breaks, night work components, Sunday or public holiday components, the specific location of deployment and the approval of actual times. In the event of changes of location, it should also be apparent which assignment belongs to which time period.
In addition, Collective agreement, pay grade, collective agreement wage and federal state should be identifiable if this information is relevant to the specific assignment. This is particularly true for security staff who switch between sites, activities or places of work.
| Specification | Why it is important | sequence in the payroll run |
|---|---|---|
| Start and end of the shift | Only in this way is it possible to distinguish between night, Sunday and public holiday components. | Surcharges can be calculated separately. |
| Approved actual time | Actual working hours may differ from the roster. | Invoicing is based on verified time data. |
| Location / Property | The place of work can be relevant for public holidays, duties or collective wage agreement reference. | Holiday and object logic become transparent. |
| Type of surcharge | Night, Sunday, public holiday and contractual allowances follow different rules. | The matching one Wage type can be assigned. |
| Correction note | Subsequent changes frequently alter overtime hours. | Corrections or recalculations can be cleanly processed. |
Working hours must also be documented in good time and kept in a traceable manner for audits. For Payroll, this documentation is particularly important if additional hours need to be explained, corrected or evaluated by project later.
Errors regarding allowances often occur where rostering and Payroll use different data statuses. The roster then contains a planned shift, while the actual working time has already deviated. If this deviation is not approved before the payroll run, allowances may be calculated to the wrong extent.
Another common mistake is incorrect public holiday assignment. If an employee works at a site in another federal state, it must be checked which public holiday logic is relevant for the actual place of work. Without this information, a public holiday supplement may be missing or applied incorrectly.
Consolidated items also make auditing more difficult. If night, Sunday and public holiday allowances are reported as a single combined allowance block, the subsequent details for tax, Social security, correction and traceability are missing. Payslips should therefore clearly show which type of time is behind each payroll item.
Another source of error arises when statutory Minimum wage, collective pay rates and premium logic are mixed. The basic wage must remain separately verifiable so that allowances, Sunday, public holiday and night-time premiums, and collective agreement provisions can be correctly classified.
In the context of allowances, such errors directly impact back-payments, correction runs and the comprehensibility of the monthly payslip.
Surcharges affect the individual Payroll, monthly personnel costs and property costing. Particularly for properties with night shifts, weekend shifts or holiday work, surcharges can make up a significant proportion of the actual deployment costs.
For property costing, it is therefore important whether surcharges can be correctly allocated and evaluated in a transparent manner. If an order regularly requires night shifts or work on public holidays, the evaluation should show what costs arise from basic pay, types of surcharge, corrections and subsequent calculations.
With multiple security guards at the same site, it should also be apparent which allowance originates from which time type. Tariff documents from the BDSW or ver.di can provide guidance for this. The payroll accounting additionally requires the approved actual time per deployment.
If separate details for night shift, Sunday, public holiday and correction times are missing, site-related personnel costs are harder to track. A shift extension, an additional public holiday deployment or a short-term site change may be processed correctly in the payroll run, but still be lost in the cost analysis if the billing data are evaluated separately by time type, location and correction time.
When allowances, adjustments and variable deployment times regularly come together, it can make sense to realistically assessing external Payroll. It is crucial that the service provider understands the industry-standard surcharge logic and processes total hours, surcharge times, Lohnarten and corrections separately.
Security service allowances arise from specific operational situations: night shifts, Sunday work, public holiday deployment, site changes, extended shifts or subsequent time corrections. For the Payroll, it is essential that this information is available separately on a professional basis before the monthly run. As a result, companies gain a better basis for billing, correction checks and monthly cost analysis. The decisive factors are approved actual times, clear allowance types, suitable Lohnarten and traceable allocation to the deployment location. An overview of the most important topics can be found in the article on Payroll in the security service. Typical interface errors are discussed in the article on Errors in the security service-Payroll detailed. How master data, deployment locations and time data interact is explained in the article on the Special features of Payroll in security services.
Brasser Accounting Solutions GmbH is a specialised accounting service provider that supports companies with financial accounting, payroll accounting, and the structuring of modern digital accounting processes. The aim is a collaboration that is professionally sound, organisationally relieving, and reliably functional in everyday use.
Brasser Accounting Solutions GmbH is part of a corporate group with Quint GmbH Tax Consultancy & Auditing and the Swedish accounting and tax firm Service Place Årjäng AB.
