How to check the payroll cost against the accounts
What is it for?
It confirms that the month's payslips and the accounts say the same thing. If they do not, it shows the amount of the difference and, in most cases, the document that causes it.
There are two maps, because they answer different questions and are opened by different profiles:
- Payroll reconciliation: the net pay, IRS and contributions on the payslips against the accounts, the payments and the DMR, with the documents that explain each difference.
- Payroll cost vs class 63 accounts: the total cost of the payslips against the balance of the staff expense accounts (632 and 635 in the example).
When to use it?
- Every month, after posting the payroll to the accounts and paying it.
- Before closing the month in the accounts or preparing a map for management.
- When account 632 or 635 shows an amount you do not recognise.
- It is not for seeing an employee's changes from one month to the next: for that, see How to compare the payroll with the previous month.
Where to find it?
- Payroll › Close and review › Payroll reconciliation.
- Management › People › Payroll cost vs class 63 accounts (Management profile). The system administrator also sees it in Payroll › Close and review › Control and inventory.
Before you start
- Payroll reconciliation: your profile is Payroll Administrator or Payroll Processor.
- Payroll cost vs class 63 accounts: your profile is Management. The Payroll Administrator and Payroll Processor do not have this menu.
- The Accountant profile sees neither map: it has neither the Payroll app nor the Management menu. Ask someone with the right profile for the figure, or ask the administrator for the profile. Reversing a journal entry (step 7) is, however, done by the Accountant.
- The month's batch is Validated and accounted. With a batch that is only Previewed, the map shows “0 payslips in the month” (seen in November 2026).
How to use it
- With the Payroll Administrator or Payroll Processor profile, open Payroll › Close and review › Payroll reconciliation. It opens on the month before the current one (on 03/11/2026, Year 2026 and Month 10).
- To see another month, click Previous month or Next month, or choose the Month and click Compare. Nothing is changed on this screen.
- Read the sentence above the table, for example “8 payslips in the month; 2 of 8 comparisons with a difference; 9 documents explain them.” Green lines are correct and red lines have a difference.
- In Documents that explain the differences, read the Reason, the Payslip or the Journal Entry and the Value of each line. Handle it as the table “What to do for each reason” below says.
- To keep the map, click Export to XLSX. In this example, the file is called “Reconciliação dos salários 2026-10.xlsx”.
- With the Management profile, open Management › People › Payroll cost vs class 63 accounts. Click Month and choose October 2026. Click the ▸ arrow of Total cost of the payslips to see it by department and the arrow of Balance of the 63x accounts to see it by account.
- If the cause is a wrong manual journal entry, ask the Accountant to reverse it: open the entry in Accounting, click Actions › Reverse, choose the Reason from the list and change the Reversal date to a day in the same month (31/10/2026 in the example). The Journal is filled in with Miscellaneous Operations. Without a Reason, Reverse does not proceed. The date defaults to today: if you keep it, the month's difference remains uncorrected.
- Open both maps again and confirm that the difference has gone.
What to do for each reason
| Reason on screen | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Payslip without a posted accounting entry | The batch was validated, but not posted. | Post the batch. |
| Payment does not cover the net pay | The payslip has not been paid yet, or the payment was lower than the net pay. | Pay the salaries. Before payment, this difference is normal. |
| Entry in the IRS account that is not from a payslip | Someone posted manually to account 242. | Check the entry with the Accountant. If it is wrong, reverse it. |
Example. In Empresa Demonstração, Lda, the October 2026 batch (8 payslips) generated journal entry SAL/2026/00005, checked in the ledger:
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| 632 Staff remuneration | 12,528.63 € | |
| 635 Charges on remuneration | 2,745.52 € | |
| 231290 Remunerações em processamento (payroll in process) | 12,528.63 € | 12,528.63 € |
| 2312 To staff (net pay) | 10,382.03 € | |
| 242 Income tax withheld | 875.00 € | |
| 245 Social Security contributions | 4,017.12 € |
The total cost of the payslips (15,274.15 €) equals the sum of 632 and 635 (12,528.63 + 2,745.52). The cost map showed a Difference of 0.00 €. Then two journal entries outside the payslips were posted manually, dated 31/10/2026:
| Journal entry | Debit | Credit | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonus posted manually | 632: 150.00 € | 2781: 150.00 € | Balance of the 63x accounts becomes 15,424.15 € and the Difference -150.00 €; account 632 opens with 12,678.63 €. |
| Manual IRS adjustment | 2781: 40.00 € | 242: 40.00 € | IRS to pay (account) becomes 915.00 € and the Difference -40.00 €, with the reason Entry in the IRS account that is not from a payslip. |
After both reversals, dated 31/10/2026, the two differences went back to 0.00 €. Only Net pay against Payments (10,382.03 €) remained, because the batch had not been paid yet: “8 payslips in the month; 1 of 8 comparisons with a difference; 8 documents explain them.”
Pending validation by a certified accountant: the demo chart of accounts, with net pay in 2312 “To staff”, and the choice of the counterpart account for each correction.Expected result
- Payroll reconciliation: “0 of 8 comparisons with a difference; 0 documents explain them.”, all lines in green. This is what September 2026 shows in the demo, with the batch paid and the DMR: Gross pay 11,560.00 €, IRS withheld 875.00 € and Contributions of the worker 1,271.60 €, the same on the payslips and in the DMR.
- Payroll cost vs class 63 accounts: Difference of 0.00 €.
Important notes
- The sign. The Difference in the cost map is the payslip cost minus the account balance. A negative value means the accounts have more expense than the payslips explain.
- With a department chosen, the difference is no longer useful. In More filters › Departments, the cost is limited to that department but the balance is still the whole company's, and the map warns: “The departments narrow only the payroll cost: the accounting has no department, so the class 63 balance and the difference are those of the whole company.” With Administração (demonstração), the difference became -10,153.97 €, which is not an error.
- The DMR counts the payslips paid in the month. In October, with the batch unpaid and no DMR, the three DMR lines show 0.00 € in green. That confirms nothing: they only mean something once the batch has been paid.
- Each company has its own map. In a company with no payroll, such as Empresa Teste Portugal, all lines show 0.00 €, in green, with “0 payslips in the month”.
Common problems
The Accountant cannot find these maps
- Symptom: the Accountant profile does not have the menu and, with the direct link to the cost map, reads “You have no access to “Total cost of the company by worker and period (PT)”…”.
- Cause: both maps show payroll totals and are not open to this profile.
- What to do: ask the Payroll Administrator (reconciliation) or Management (cost) for the figure, or ask the administrator for the profile.
The cost by department opens nothing
- Symptom: the arrow of Total cost of the payslips changes to ▾, but no lines appear. With a department chosen, the cost shows 0.00 €.
- Cause: the employees have no department on their file. Their payslips count in the total, but do not appear under any department.
- What to do: fill in the Department on the employee's file and open the map again. The total does not change.
The Payroll Administrator does not have the cost map
- Symptom: in Close and review, the Payroll Administrator and Payroll Processor see Payroll reconciliation, but not Payroll cost vs class 63 accounts.
- Cause: this map shows account balances, and these profiles do not have accounting. It is open to Management.
- What to do: ask Management for the map.
Differences to review shows nothing
- Symptom: in Payroll › Close and review › Differences to review, with the Month chosen and after Look for differences, the list is empty.
- Cause: this screen does not check the accounts. It looks for changes between this month's payslips and the previous month's above the Limit (%), which the screen does not let you change (20.00 % in the demo). In October 2026 none exceeded the limit.
- What to do: nothing, if the list is empty. Ask the Payroll reviewer opens the Copilot agent, which must be switched on by someone with the Fiscal administration profile.