Ason enables you to offer payroll as a fully integrated feature - either embedded natively into your platform via API, or as your own fully branded, standalone product using Ason's ready-to-use UI. Both options run on the same underlying infrastructure: Ason's payroll engine, exposed via a REST API, plus an optional React frontend you can adapt, embed, or run as-is.
Embedded: API-First Integration
Your platform connects to Ason's payroll engine via API, and payroll simply becomes part of your existing workflows and UI.
Your platform:
- Manages users, employees, contracts, and any relevant data
- Sends payroll-relevant case changes (e.g. changes, hours, absences)
- Triggers payroll runs
Ason:
- Processes payroll automatically
- Applies regulatory logic
- Generates results (payslips, reports, accounting data)
All results are returned via API and, through webhooks, your platform is notified in real time - allowing you to instantly display updates directly in your UI.
Typical user flow:
- User logs into your platform
- User manages employees and payroll-relevant data
- Payroll runs automatically in the background
- Results (payslips, reports, payments) appear directly in your UI
There is: no system switch, no additional login, no need for payroll expertise.
Standalone / White-Label
Prefer not to build a payroll UI at all? Run Ason's ready-to-use frontend as your own fully branded, standalone product instead of embedding it piece by piece - offer payroll to your customers without building your own frontend or backend, while keeping full control over user experience and branding.
Typical user flow:
- User logs into your platform
- User clicks "Go to Payroll"
- User is directly routed into the white-labeled payroll UI
- Payroll is fully accessible - no additional login required
Both integration styles - embedded and standalone - are just two ways of exposing the same underlying engine and frontend; see "How it works" below for the two components, and "Identity & Access Management" for how routing and login work in either case.
Payroll Service: Expert Logic Built In
Ason isn't just an API you call - behind it is a fully automated payroll engine that handles the work a payroll specialist would otherwise do manually. This applies whether you embed Ason or run it standalone.
Managed operations
- Validation of input data, with guidance for anything missing (see Missing Company Data / Missing Employee Data)
- Handling of common cases (national, cantonal and best-practice regulations) such as hours, bonuses, 13th month salary, allowances, loss of earnings, short-time work, add-back of taxable benefits, and more
- Different salary types (hourly, monthly, daily, yearly) and pro rata processing
- Insurance-scheme-based calculations
- Retroactive calculations across periods (see Results)
- Withholding tax calculations and reporting per canton
- Declarations to authorities, compensation and pension funds where ELM-ready
Managed year-end processing
- Year-end declarations to OASI, AC, CAF, accident and sickness insurance
- Provision of salary certificates
- Technical statistics to the Federal Statistical Office
Workflow
- Guided workflow for onboarding new organisations, new employees (via ESS), and leavers and re-entries
Infrastructure
- Operation and maintenance of the payroll engine and platform infrastructure, including data storage
- Continuous updates on regulations, with current Swissdec certification
Optional extensions
Additional regulatory logic such as collective labour agreements, ERP interfaces, budget and forecast features, multiple employment contracts, or pay-as-you-go services are available on request - see Regulations.
Ready-to-Use Frontend (React)
Ason provides a fully functional, open-source payroll UI built in React (see Build your own solution) - it's what powers the Standalone/White-Label option above, and what you can selectively reuse if you're embedding.
This frontend:
- Is already connected to the Ason API
- Includes standard payroll workflows and views: payroll processing, employee and contract management, reporting and payslips
- Can be used as a reference implementation, run as-is for a white-label product, or directly integrated piece by piece
Your engineers can:
- Reuse components
- Adapt the UI to your design system
- Embed parts of the frontend directly into your platform
This enables you to turn payroll into a native feature quickly, without building everything from scratch. Looking for videos instead of reading? See Videos.
Identity & Access Management
To provide a seamless user experience - whether embedded or standalone - Ason can be integrated with your existing Identity & Access Management (IAM), so users access payroll with their existing account and no separate login. There are two implementation options, depending on your product architecture and roadmap.
Option 1: Managed Backend Gateway
Your platform fully controls user access and routing. This is the default, recommended pattern for most integrations.
How it works:
- The user logs into your platform
- Your backend manages the Ason tenants
- Your backend connects to Ason via a system user
- The correct tenant is opened for the user automatically
- The user is routed directly into your embedded UI, or into the white-labeled payroll UI if you're running standalone
Result: the user sees the correct payroll environment without any additional login.
Code
Setup 1 (Recommended): Dedicated Ason PROD instance in Ason's Azure environment.
Setup 2: Start on the Ason PROD instance and migrate to a dedicated instance later (additional effort required).
Option 2: Direct IAM Integration
Your IAM directly controls access to payroll - recommended if you want centralized user management with no system-user hop at all.
How it works:
- Ason provides a dedicated Azure instance
- Your IAM is directly connected to the payroll system
- User access and permissions are managed by setting up Ason users in YOUR Ason PROD instance
Result: a fully integrated authentication setup with centralized user management.
Requirements: dedicated Ason PROD instance on Ason's Azure environment required.
Code
See Authentication for the full picture, including interactive login and system user token lifetime.
User access and data are controlled by your platform, while Ason securely executes payroll processing in the background - no system switch, no additional login, no need for payroll expertise.
Use Case: Embed in Accounting Software
If your platform is an accounting/Fibu product, embedding Ason lets you add full Swiss payroll without building payroll logic yourself:
- Your platform sends employee and salary case changes as they happen
- Ason processes payroll and returns the accounting posting document via webhook after each period close
- Your platform imports the posting document directly into the customer's ledger - no manual re-entry
See Outputs for what's in the document and how wage types map to accounts.
Use Case: Embed in Workforce Management Software
If your platform already manages time tracking, absences or shift planning, you can keep owning that data and only feed Ason what it needs for payroll:
- Your platform stays the source of truth for hours, absences and scheduling
- Relevant changes (hours worked, absences, salary changes) are reported to Ason as case changes
- Results and payslips are returned via webhook and shown in your existing UI
You don't need to duplicate anything Ason doesn't need: employee master data can stay in your system, with only the fields Ason needs for a calculation sent as case changes (see New CaseChanges), and documents like payslips or contracts can be pulled into your system via Outputs instead of living only in Ason.
Summary & Next Step
With Ason:
- Payroll becomes a native feature of your product, or a fully branded standalone product - your choice
- Your users stay entirely within your platform, or move seamlessly into a white-labeled one, with no additional login either way
- Ason runs payroll in the background as infrastructure
Ready to try it? Head to the Quickstart.