Made for Swiss self-employed & SMEs
The moment a small Swiss office hires its first employee, a quiet pile of paperwork appears: AHV, BVG, accident insurance, source tax — and once a year, the Lohnausweis. None of it is intellectually hard, but all of it is deadline-driven and easy to get slightly wrong.
The truth is that payroll is not a mystery — it is a short list of repeating steps with a few fiddly details. And the fiddly details are exactly what AI handles well: gathering the month's changes, checking them against the rules, and drafting the message that goes to your payroll provider or accountant.
Why payroll quietly eats your time
Payroll rarely fails loudly. It fails quietly, through small omissions that surface weeks later as a correction, a phone call or a penalty notice:
- Many institutions. One employee triggers obligations towards AHV/IV/EO, the pension fund (BVG), accident insurance (UVG/NBU) and, for cross-border or foreign staff, source tax.
- Many deadlines. Contributions are due monthly or quarterly, and the annual statements follow their own calendar.
- The annual Lohnausweis. The salary certificate you issue every January has fields that are genuinely easy to fill in wrongly, and a wrong figure lands straight in the employee's tax return.
What a small office actually has to track
Strip away the forms and payroll is a short list of facts that change each month:
- Changes: new hires, departures, salary changes, hours, absences, bonuses.
- Insurances: who is covered by BVG and UVG, and at what salary level.
- Source tax: whether any employee is taxed at source, and at which rate.
- The salary statements: the monthly payslip and the annual Lohnausweis.
An AI routine to run it
Step 1 — Keep a master sheet
Write down your own payroll facts once — the institutions, the contribution accounts, the deadline calendar and the salary levels that trigger BVG and UVG. This is the part that never changes and the part most likely to contain a typo if you look it up fresh every month.
Step 2 — Collect the month's changes in one note
Each month, jot the changes in a single short note: who joined, who left, who changed hours, any bonus or absence. Then hand the note and your master sheet to the AI:
You are helping a small Swiss office prepare its monthly payroll. Here is my master sheet: [institutions, accounts, salary levels, deadline calendar]. Here are this month's changes: [list]. Please draft the message to our payroll provider with the changes, and flag anything that affects AHV, BVG, accident insurance or source tax.
Step 3 — Let the AI draft, you approve
The AI does not pay anyone and does not transmit anything. It drafts the message and flags what looks off. You read it once, correct what needs correcting, and send it — the same way you would with a careful colleague.
A second prompt: checking the numbers
Before you send, run one more pass to catch the kind of mistake that turns into a correction:
Check this payroll message for common Swiss mistakes: is every new hire covered by the right insurances, are the BVG and UVG thresholds respected, is any employee subject to source tax, and are the amounts consistent with last month? List anything that looks wrong or missing.
The Lohnausweis at year-end
Every January the same question returns: the salary certificate. The Lohnausweis has a specific field for almost everything — gross salary, contributions, expense allowances, benefits in kind — and each field has its rules.
Here the AI earns its keep as a second pair of eyes. Give it last year's Lohnausweis, the twelve monthly summaries, and the current instructions, and ask it to draft the new certificate field by field, flagging anything that differs from the previous year and anything that needs your decision.
The result is not a finished document you sign blindly. It is a first draft you can review carefully, instead of a blank form at the end of January.
One honest caveat
The AI does not calculate contributions, does not file with the institutions, and does not replace your payroll provider or fiduciary. It drafts, checks and reminds — the mechanical parts that consume your time. The final responsibility for the numbers stays with you, exactly as it should.
The outcome
One master sheet, one monthly note, two short prompts, and one pass over the year-end certificate. Payroll stops being a monthly dread and becomes a routine you can finish in a quiet half-hour — and the Lohnausweis is ready before the rush, because the draft was already waiting.
