Connect Fortnox Lön — send payroll data without a file

If you have Fortnox Lön, Vendion can send the payroll data straight into Fortnox and mirror your employees there so you do not have to enter them twice. The alternative — exporting a PAXml file from Staff ▸ Payroll and importing it in Fortnox — remains and works exactly as before. The direct route is more convenient; the file stays for everyone else and as a way out when the API misbehaves.

What the connection does

With the connection on, three things apply:

• Employees are mirrored to Fortnox. When you add a team member in Vendion, they can be sent over as an employee in Fortnox Lön.
• Payroll data can be sent directly. Working time, absence and amount rows go over without a file.
• Fortnox sends three fields back. Tax table, tax column and Fora code are owned by Fortnox and are fetched home every night.

It is the same Fortnox connection used for the bookkeeping — not a second login. But the payroll part requires an extra permission that is only requested if you do things in the right order. Read the next section before clicking.

Turn the staff sync on FIRST — then connect

This is the most common trap, and it is worth its two minutes:

1. Go to Integrations ▸ Fortnox ▸ Manage
2. Turn on Sync staff to Fortnox Lön
3. Click Connect Fortnox (or Update permissions if you are already connected)
4. Log in at Fortnox and approve the permissions

The reason for the order: the payroll permission is only requested if the staff sync is already on. If you connect first and turn the sync on afterwards, the connection lacks the permission, and Vendion can neither read nor write employees. Vendion then shows a warning with the button Update permissions — click it and approve again, and it is solved.

If you do not have the Fortnox Lön licence the approval fails — and that takes out the whole connection, including the bookkeeping part that worked before. The Fortnox restriction is hard and applies to the entire approval, not just the payroll part. That is why Vendion only requests the permission once you have turned the sync on yourself. If you lack the Lön licence: leave the staff sync off and continue with the payroll file from Staff ▸ Payroll.

If you use cost centres the connection also needs permission for them — the employment record carries a cost centre, and a code that does not exist in Fortnox causes the whole record to be rejected. Vendion has its own mapping where you point out which Fortnox cost centre each Vendion cost centre corresponds to.

Match the people

Vendion and Fortnox must know which person is which. Under Integrations ▸ Fortnox ▸ Manage there is a button Match employees, where you pair up existing employees in the two systems.

For a single team member you do it instead from Staff ▸ Staff ▸ [the person], in the card Payroll system. There you see:

The button says Send to Fortnox the first time and Resync to Fortnox after that. If you break the link the person stays in Fortnox — Vendion just no longer knows which employee there it is.

What each employee needs

Two fields must be filled in in Vendion before the person can be sent over, otherwise the card says so:

• Employee number — that is the link to the payroll system
• Personnel type — Salaried or Waged. Fortnox cannot create an employee without it. You set the field under Edit on the team member.

Send the payroll data

Once the month is reviewed and the payroll period is locked, go to Staff ▸ Payroll, click Export and choose Send to Fortnox Lön. The data goes straight into Fortnox — no file to download and import.

The lock is a requirement, not a recommendation: an unlocked period can still change, and Fortnox would then hold data that no longer matches Vendion. The options PAXml — payroll file (Fortnox Lön), SIE file — payroll voucher and CSV — payroll data remain in the same menu.

Time and absence go over without any mapping — those codes are fixed at Fortnox. Amount rows (tips, shift pay, major holiday supplement, meal benefit, gross and net adjustments) require that you have entered your own salary codes first. See the article on payroll codes and export.

Differences against Fortnox — what we do not overwrite

After a transfer a card may appear on the payroll page: "3 rows differ from Fortnox". It is not an error — it is Vendion declining to overwrite something somebody corrected directly in Fortnox.

The rows are grouped per person and labelled by type:

For Time and Absence there is a button Send our value anyway, which re-runs the row with Vendion's figure. Otherwise correct it at whichever side is wrong, and the difference disappears by itself.

Amount rows deliberately cannot be forced. Their only difference case is that we do not know for certain which Fortnox employee the row belongs to — and then the alternatives are updating a stranger's payslip row or paying out twice. Solve it by linking the person correctly under Match employees.

What Fortnox owns and sends back

Three fields are owned by Fortnox and fetched home to Vendion every night: tax table, tax column and Fora code. If you change them in Fortnox they follow along here.

If both sides have changed the same field there is no right answer to calculate — then you answer yourself, under Integrations ▸ Fortnox ▸ Manage ▸ Differences against Fortnox. The nightly sweep first sends Vendion's changes and fetches Fortnox changes a while later, so a change always gets across before it is compared.