Guide to the payroll register: its role as a supporting document, mandatory content, signing and confidentiality, the archiving term and the link to the payslip.
Translated from Romanian. This article covers Romanian labour and tax law; the Romanian version is canonical and is updated first.
The payroll register (statul de plată) is the document on the basis of which salaries are paid and the expense is justified in the accounts. It is not a simple list of amounts: it has content requirements, signing rules and an archiving term that outlives most companies. Here is what you need to know.
The payroll register is a financial and accounting supporting document (document justificativ) which brings together, for one month, the salary entitlements of all employees and the related deductions.
It serves at the same time for:
The last point explains the special archiving regime described below.
As a financial and accounting document, the payroll register includes, as a minimum:
Separately from the register itself, the employer also records the work insurance contribution (CAM) of 2.25%, which is an employer cost, not a deduction from the salary.
The payroll register is signed by the person who drew it up, by the person who checks it and by the employer’s legal representative.
The employee’s signature on the register used to be proof that the money had been received — back when payment was in cash. Today, when payment is made by bank transfer, the proof is the account statement, and the employee’s signature on the register is no longer needed in the same way.
This matters for confidentiality: a payroll register circulated for signatures exposes every employee’s income. The practice of passing it around “one by one” is problematic under GDPR.
The confusion is common, even though the roles differ:
| Payroll register | Payslip | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers | all employees | a single employee |
| Role | accounting supporting document | informing the employee |
| Confidentiality | strictly limited access | handed to the employee |
| Signed by | preparer, checker, legal representative | — |
The employer has an obligation to inform the employee about the elements that make up their salary. The payslip (fluturaș) is the usual way of doing this — and it must reach the employee individually, not posted up or distributed in a way that exposes other people’s data.
This is where the trap lies. Payroll registers have traditionally been used to establish and recalculate pensions, which is why the retention term was 50 years.
Through Legea 36/2023, article 25 of the Accounting Act (Legea contabilității) was amended: accounting records and supporting documents are kept for 5 years, counted from 1 July of the year following the financial year — including payroll registers.
The prudent recommendation nevertheless remains unchanged: do not destroy payroll registers on the basis of the new term without an analysis. They are the source of the income and length-of-service certificates that a former employee may ask you for in 20 or 30 years’ time, for their pension file. The cost of keeping them is far lower than being unable to issue a correct certificate.
Salary data is personal data. In practice:
The European directive on pay transparency changes some rules on informing employees about pay scales and ranges — but it does not turn individual salaries into public information.
Is the payroll register mandatory? Yes, as a financial and accounting supporting document underpinning the payment of salaries and the recording of the personnel expense.
Does the employee have to sign it? Where payment is made by bank transfer, the account statement is the proof of payment. The employee’s signature on the register no longer plays the role it had in the era of cash payments, and circulating the register for signatures raises confidentiality issues.
How long is it kept? Legea 36/2023 introduced a 5-year term for accounting documents, including payroll registers. In practice, long-term retention remains advisable, because the registers are used to issue income and length-of-service certificates.
What is the difference from the payslip? The register covers all employees and is an accounting document; the payslip is individual and serves to inform the employee.
Can I post the payroll register in the workplace? No. Salary data is personal data, with access limited to the people who need it operationally.
See also payroll contributions in 2026, how long to keep personnel documents and the employee certificate.
The payroll register in Workly is generated from data, not from transcriptions: days and hours come from the time records, absences from the leave module with the correct type, bonuses from the contract and its addenda (acte adiționale). Every amount can be traced back to its source — useful both for an internal check and for an employee’s question.
Access is role-based: whoever runs payroll sees the full register, a team manager does not. The result is exported in SAGA format to accounting, with an export history for audit. And archiving is configurable, with data kept in a form that allows income and length-of-service certificates to be issued years later — without digging through binders.
Informational article, accurate at the date of publication. Not tax or legal advice. Archiving terms have recently been amended and are interpreted differently — check your specific situation or consult a specialist before destroying documents.
Payslip guide: the employer's duty to inform, what elements it contains, how to read it line by line, electronic delivery and confidentiality.
Personal deduction guide: the percentage system in art. 77 of the Fiscal Code, the 20–45% grid by dependants, the cancellation threshold and the main-job declaration.
Guide to salary deductions: the due, liquid and enforceable debt condition, the one-third and one-half caps, the order of priority and what an employer cannot withhold unilaterally.
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