Integrator for Silae
Integrating the Silae API into your system
We build your Silae connector: collecting payroll variables, payslips, filings, accounting entries. We also steer the API access request with your accounting firm, because that is where Silae projects fall behind.
- Senior product team
- Silae connector in production (Paye Expert)
- from scoping to monitoring
Why work with a Silae integrator and what can be connected to Silae?
Silae is a payroll software used by accounting firms to manage their clients' payroll. Its API lets your application read payslips, employees and payroll variables, or inject variable elements before the monthly close. You integrate it in payroll variable collection tools, HRIS systems that need to sync absences and contracts, or accounting software that automatically imports payroll journal entries. API access is conditional on an agreement with the firm's Silae partner: this is the main constraint to anticipate during scoping.
What a Silae integration unlocks
Variable collection without spreadsheets
Bonuses, advances, absences and hours travel from your entry tool into Silae. Re-entry disappears, and its margin of error goes with it.
Targeted reminders to managers
The product knows what Silae is still waiting for this period. Reminders become named and dated, instead of a generic email to everyone.
Payroll entries pushed into accounting
Payroll entries land in Sage, Odoo or Pennylane with their cost centre split. No more file imported by hand every month.
Payroll cost by department and project
Payslip lines and running totals feed a dashboard. You no longer wait for the firm's report to steer the business.
What a Silae integration changes for your business
Engineering in service of a measurable outcome: less re-entry, traceable payroll, more client files at the same headcount.
One single entry, everywhere
Variable elements are entered once and travel to Silae. Retyping time disappears from your payroll administrators' schedule.
Payroll progress becomes a screen
Production status per file replaces the endless "where are we" exchanges. Late files become visible before the deadline.
Every flow can be justified
Payload sent, response, error code, file and period are all logged. You can answer an audit question six months later.
More files without more administrators
For an accounting firm, automating collection and checks frees time per file. That is growth capacity, not just comfort.
How we connect Silae to your system
Scoping and access
Which opening model applies, which partner holds the domain, which files to configure. We start the access request on day one, because it takes weeks.
Mapping
Matching your payroll items to the Silae functions, choosing a version per function, setting data normalisation rules. This is the step that decides success.
Development and testing
Typed connector, cached token, asynchronous pattern on heavy extractions, a persisted deduplication key. Replay on a pseudonymised dataset.
Monitoring
Alerts on application error codes, an auditable log per file and per period, a health dashboard. You know a flow is broken before the close.
What Silae allows
- Files and employees
- The list of accessible payroll files, employee records, reading and updating fields, creating jobs. The basis of any HRIS sync.
- Variable elements and absences
- Adding bonuses, advances, variable elements and absences, plus the list of what is still awaited for the current period.
- Payslips and checks
- Payslips, lines and running totals, duplicates, checking a period's payslips and tracking how far production has got.
- Filings and accounting entries
- Monthly and event-based social filings, declaration status and retrieval, accounting entries with cost centre splits and salary payments.
The vocabulary of a Silae integration
- Dossier
- The payroll unit in Silae, identified by a number passed in a header. A number containing a space or an accent triggers an application error: normalising it happens on our side, before the call.
- API configuration key
- The subscription key that carries the permissions and defines which files are visible. Regenerated or deleted, it invalidates calls immediately: rotation has to be a tested procedure.
- Opening model
- The form that frames API access depending on usage: a partner internally for payroll or for HR, a partner serving its end client, or a software vendor for accounting entries.
- Variable element
- Everything that changes from one month to the next: bonus, advance, absence, hours. It is what the connector pushes, so it is the first place a duplicate gets expensive.
- Asynchronous pattern
- For heavy workloads the API returns a task identifier to poll rather than an immediate result. A synchronous call on a large volume times out.
- Payroll accounting entry
- The accounting entry that translates the month's payroll. It leaves Silae with its cost centre split and must be balance-checked before it enters the books.
The real constraints of a Silae integration
API access is contractual, not technical
It takes a signed contract with Silae and an opening form, with a different model depending on the usage. The API account is attached to a partner's domain, and the stated lead time for a first request is a few weeks.
An SME cannot open the access on its own
It is the Silae partner, often the firm that runs the payroll, that configures access file by file from the application. Silae does not step into that stage after contracting: we steer the coordination with the firm.
Authentication quota and maintenance window
Authentication is capped at 60 tokens per minute, while the token stays valid for 60 minutes: it gets cached. The documentation also recommends avoiding calls between 1 am and 5 am.
Very concrete data constraints
Values have to respect the Windows-1252 character set and a strict date format. Confusing the period and date parameters produces silently incomplete extractions, which is worse than an error.
Silae or Lucca, and what it implies
Both live in the same HR chain without playing the same role. Silae produces the payroll, Lucca collects and runs the day to day. Many projects need both.
| Criterion | SilaeThis page | LuccaHRIS upstream |
|---|---|---|
| Role in the chain | Payroll production and filings | HRIS: leave, time, expenses, employee records |
| Opening access | Signed contract and form, configured by a partner | Integration key created inside your instance |
| Who decides | The firm or partner holding the domain | You, as administrator of your instance |
| Shape of the API | A catalogue of named functions, several versions per function | REST resources, two generations side by side |
| Documented limit | 60 tokens per minute on authentication | 50 requests per minute per domain |
| Large volumes | Asynchronous pattern with status polling | Filtered, paged incremental reads |
| The right case | Variable collection, payslips, filings, payroll accounting entry | Plugging a schedule, a directory or project tracking into HR data |
We claim neither a Silae certification nor partner status: we prepare the technical groundwork and the connector while the request is being processed, and we act as the development team on the integration, alongside your accounting firm.
What we measure on a Silae project
The other payroll and HRIS tools
The choice follows whichever tool you already run, and who produces the payroll.
SilaeIntegrating the Silae API into your systemThis page
LuccaThe HRIS upstream: leave, time, expense claims, employee records.
PayFitPayroll and HR in one tool, common in SMEs that keep payroll in-house.We combine Silae with
The stack that surrounds Silae on our projects.
Silae integration: your questions
The first piece of work is not code, it is the access request: identifying which opening model applies, which partner holds the domain and which files need configuring. Once the three secrets are in hand (client identifier, secret and API configuration key), you obtain a client credentials token valid for 60 minutes and cache it. You then build the connector on the useful functions, systematically using the asynchronous variant for large extractions, and normalising inputs before sending. The real difficulty is administrative and organisational, not technical.
Two conditions: a signed contract with Silae and a completed API account opening form, whose model depends on the usage (a partner internally, a partner serving its end client, or a software vendor for accounting entries). The API account is attached to the partner's domain, and it is that partner, often the accounting firm, that activates access file by file. The stated lead time for a first request is a few weeks. We cannot unlock that access on Silae's behalf, but we prepare the groundwork, the test environment and the connector while the request is processed, so those weeks are not lost.
Two durations have to be separated. Opening API access takes a few weeks and does not depend on us: it depends on the contract and on the partner holding the domain. Development runs in parallel: a first useful flow, for example pulling the variables still awaited and pushing bonuses, ships in two to three weeks of actual work. A full chain with payslips, checks, social filings and accounting entries takes closer to six to eight weeks. That is why we always start the access request on day one of the project.
Yes, and it is one of the most requested cases. The API exposes accounting entries over a period, grouped into blocks with debit and credit totals, and with cost centre splits when you ask for them. We check the balance down to the cent and produce a discrepancy report before pushing anything into the accounting software. Every flow carries a stable business key, so a replay never creates a duplicate entry. The accounting mapping is validated with your chartered accountant before the first real entry.
That is not how we design it, and we would advise against it. The API exposes functions to check a period's payslips and to track how far production has got, which serve to prepare and to alert. The final validation stays a payroll administrator's decision, made on a readable discrepancy report. The exact scope of what can still be changed on an already closed period also has to be tested on the test environment before any promise: we do not commit to automatic retroactive corrections.
A Silae integration project?
Let's talk. 30 minutes to identify who holds your API access, scope the useful flows and tell you honestly what is feasible and how long it takes.
Discuss my Silae project