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Bookkeeping
Your First Employee in Serbia: Employer Obligations Step by Step
Admin5 min
The first employee is a big deal: a sign the business is growing, but also the moment the company acquires a whole new layer of obligations that did not exist yesterday. Contract, registration, payroll, records: none of it is hard once set up properly. Here is what awaits you and in what order.
Before the first working day
- An employment contract. Concluded in writing before work starts, with all mandatory elements: duties, salary, working hours, place of work.
- Social insurance registration. The employee is registered within the prescribed deadline tied to starting work, electronically through the Central Registry. Unregistered work is among the offenses labor inspection treats most strictly.
- Occupational health and safety. Even a small company has basic obligations: a risk assessment act and familiarizing the employee with it.
Every month after that
- Payroll. Gross salary is broken into net, tax and contributions, with an electronic tax filing before payment.
- Payment on time. Salary is paid within the contractual deadline, and tax and contributions are paid upon payment.
- Records. Working time, absences, annual leave and sick leave records: boring until needed, decisive when needed.
What else to plan
- The cost is not just net. The company's total cost per employee is gross salary plus employer contributions: plan with that number, not the net from the job ad.
- Hiring incentives. For certain categories of new hires there are reliefs and subsidies that change from year to year: before hiring, we check whether any applies to your case.
- Team growth. A setup that works for one employee should survive five: processes are built now, not rebuilt later.
Leave payroll to us
Payroll, filings and records are part of our accounting service: you tell us the amount and changes, we do everything else, on time. Hiring your first employee? Book a conversation or send us a message before signing the contract: we will set everything up right the first time.
