There's no doubt that the spread of coronavirus/COVID-19 has economic consequences for Danish business. In response, the Government is issuing a number of measures to help companies at this time. On this page, we update those measures, together with what they mean for payroll administration in the Zenegy payroll system.
Updated 31 March 2020
Payments to DA-Barsel are postponed
Because of the current COVID-19 situation, the collection of contributions to DA Barsel for the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2020 is postponed, to be paid together with the contributions for the 3rd quarter of 2020. The new payment deadline for the 1st – 2nd and 3rd quarters is 14 October 2020.
What does it mean for payroll administration?
You don't need to do anything about the postponed payment deadlines. Zenegy has updated the system with the new payment deadline, and your payments to DA-Barsel will automatically be moved to the new payment deadline of 14 October.
Updated 22 April 2020
Tripartite agreement for employees in the private sector
The Government and the social partners have entered into a tripartite agreement on a temporary wage compensation scheme for employees at risk of dismissal. This means that companies experiencing fewer orders and fewer customers as a result of COVID-19, and therefore unable to keep their employees working, can have the employees' pay covered, to avoid dismissing them.
The scheme applies in the period from 9 March to 8 July, and it applies to companies that would otherwise have to dismiss 30% of their staff or more than 50 employees.
At the end of March, the Government entered into a new agreement and raised the amount that can be covered. Under the new agreement, the wage compensation looks like this.
Wage compensation:
Salaried employees can have 75% of their pay covered, up to a maximum of DKK 30,000 per month.
Non-salaried employees can have 90% of their pay covered, up to a maximum of DKK 30,000 per month.
Note! The employee doesn't have to be employed full-time to get compensation. The maximum amount is reduced proportionally if the employee works fewer than 37 hours a week.
The new limit applies to everyone – both those who have already sent an application and those who intend to. Read more about wage compensation and detailed guidance on applying on Virksomhedsguiden's website.
What does it mean for payroll administration?
If there are employees in the company who will be covered by the wage compensation package, we recommend making a note on those employees, so you can later pull a report on the ones affected.
We recommend the following approach: Choose Registrations > Holiday and absence. Choose Employee > Absence type – Other absence > Make a note in Description: ‘Wage compensation package’.
Afterwards, you can pull a report on absence under Reports > Reports with the absence type Other absence, along with the notes, which gives the company a good overview of the employees affected, for whom wage compensation is to be applied for.
Updated 17 March 2020
Option of reimbursement from the first day of sickness – bill passed
With this bill, it will be possible to apply for reimbursement from the first day of sickness with COVID-19. The change in the law will apply with retroactive effect from 27 February until 1 January 2021.
What does it mean for payroll administration?
If the bill is passed, it's a good idea to have sickness absence registered completely correctly. At present, it's not entirely clear how the bill is to be handled in practice. It is, however, important to have your absence registrations in order already now, so you can tell the difference between ordinary sickness, sickness due to coronavirus, and being sent home due to quarantine.
Here is our recommendation for registering sickness and absence:
If an employee is sick and has coronavirus-like symptoms (see the symptoms of coronavirus here), we recommend registering the sickness as Absence > Sickness > Note ‘Corona’ in the Description.
If an employee has been sent home in quarantine because of coronavirus, we recommend registering the absence as Absence > Other absence > Note ‘Corona’ in the Description.
If an employee is sick for reasons other than coronavirus-like symptoms, we recommend that you use your current approach for registering sickness, under Absence > Sickness.
Afterwards, you can pull a report on absence under Reports > Reports with the different absence types, along with the notes, so the company has an overview of absence in the company.
Updated 13 March 2020
Postponement of payment of A-tax and labour market contributions – bill passed
To ease companies' liquidity challenges, the Government has decided to postpone the May, June and July instalments by 4 months.
See the overview below, which shows the new payment deadlines for A-tax and labour market contributions for small/medium-sized companies and large companies respectively.
Note that the March instalment follows the original deadlines and must be paid as before, i.e. 31 March for large companies and 14 April for small/medium-sized companies.
What does it mean for payroll administration?
The person responsible for payroll doesn't need to do anything about the new payment deadlines for the settlement periods April, May and June. Zenegy has updated the new payment deadlines in the system, and payments of A-tax and labour market contributions will be settled on time.
Get an overview of the payments under Reports > Payments. If you want a combined overview of payments of A-tax and labour market contributions in the period, you'll find it under Reports > Payments – grouped.
