The DSN (Déclaration sociale nominative) is a file sent each month by your payroll software to French social protection bodies. It contains several compensation amounts that serve different purposes.
Reflect transforms them into two families of measures: payroll, which describes amounts declared over a period, and theoretical salary, which describes annualized compensation at a given date.
1. Choose between payroll and theoretical salary
Payroll measures: “Total paid” and “Average payroll” use normalized payroll amounts, the selected period and filters.
Salary measures: “Base salary sum”, “Total salary sum” and their FTE variants use reconstructed theoretical salaries. Measures at the end of a period use the value on that date, rather than cumulative payroll.
To analyze employees’ gross pay, filter payroll types to Base, Variable and Bonus. Payroll measures can also include “Employer contribution” when available in the data; the DSN alone does not provide the full breakdown here.
2. From DSN items to payroll categories
Assign amounts to a period
Amounts are matched to employees and their contracts. Remuneration uses the start of its pay period; bonuses use their payment date when declared, otherwise the declaration month. Other items use the start date of their declared period, when provided. A bonus covering several months is not automatically spread across those months.
Adjust base salary
By default, Reflect deducts structural overtime from the declared base salary to obtain an adjusted base. Source-specific adjustments may also add or subtract certain items.
Calculate “Other payroll items”
Reflect calculates the remainder between uncapped gross pay and the combined adjusted base, overtime or additional hours, bonuses and other included items.
This remainder appears in the “Autres éléments de paie” (Other payroll items) category. It can be positive or negative. It is a calculated amount, rather than the name of a specific payslip item.
Normalize categories
Imported or calculated categories are then classified into Reflect payroll types, such as Base, Variable or Bonus. Normalization determines their inclusion in measures and allows you to filter them. A category without a type is not included in “Total paid”.
Normalization does not split bonuses already grouped in the file. Several bonuses may share a single DSN category. The appendix illustrates these groupings.
A transformation example
In this simplified example, with no source-specific adjustment, the DSN declares €3,500 gross pay, a base of €3,000 (including €200 structural overtime), plus €100 occasional overtime and a €300 bonus.
Reflect obtains an adjusted base of €2,800 and a remainder of €100. Together with structural overtime, occasional overtime and the bonus, the reconstructed breakdown matches the €3,500 declared gross pay.
3. From the adjusted base to salary measures
Reflect reconstructs theoretical salary from non-zero adjusted base amounts. An arrival, departure or absence during the month may reduce the declared base: annualizing that partial month may then understate theoretical salary.
Reflect can correct some partial first months using the amount from the next full month, subject to conditions. This correction is not generally applied to departure months or absences during the contract. Short contracts may lack a usable full reference month. This theoretical salary correction does not change declared payroll amounts.
If base salary and structural overtime are reduced in different proportions, the adjusted base may also be distorted.
The retained monthly amount is then annualized over twelve months. In the previous example, with no further correction, the €2,800 monthly base corresponds to a €33,600 annual theoretical salary. This describes an annualized base, rather than the total payroll received during the year.
Monthly variants divide annual salary by 12. Full-time equivalent (FTE) variants convert salary to full-time using the working-time ratio, when usable.
Salary and payroll normalizations are separate. Classifying a payroll bonus as “Bonus” does not automatically add it to theoretical variable salary or salary bonuses. With the DSN alone, contractual components that cannot be identified are not inferred from paid bonuses.
What about the BDESE?
The BDESE uses these measures according to the table you need to produce. First check whether the table requires actual payroll over a period or theoretical salary at a given date, then check its population and treatment of part-time work.
Appendix: DSN items and standard processing
DSN item | What it represents | Treatment in Reflect |
Base salary | The base amount declared for the pay period. | Adjusted, then used for payroll and to reconstruct theoretical salary. |
Uncapped gross pay | An overall gross compensation amount. | Used as a reference to reconstruct the breakdown. It is not added to its components a second time. |
Overtime or additional hours | Amounts for occasional (017) and structural (018) overtime or additional hours. | Kept separately in payroll. Structural overtime is deducted from the declared base. |
Bonuses, gratuities and allowances | Amounts classified by DSN categories, sometimes grouped together. | Supported categories feed payroll and can be normalized. |
Other gross income items | Includes benefits in kind and certain entitlements. | Only supported categories feed the payroll breakdown. |
Restored or reconstructed salary | A gross base recalculated for social protection, particularly after certain absences. It is not automatically converted to full-time. | Not used as the basis for theoretical salary measures or as a separate payroll component in the current DSN processing. |
Other declared bases | Reference salary for unemployment insurance (002); social net amount (block 58, type 03 in DSN 2026). | Not provided as separate components of the payroll or salary measures described here. |
These amounts can overlap: overall gross pay, base pay and bonuses should not be added together without considering their contents. The table describes standard processing; available detail also depends on declarations and source configuration.
Read a code together with its block and the standard’s year. 027 in the Bonus block identifies a category of activity-related bonuses. Code 027 in the Remuneration block historically represented the social net amount; in DSN 2026, this is declared in block S21.G00.58, type 03.
Appendix: bonus groupings in the DSN
This original French reference illustrates how several common bonuses can be grouped under one DSN code. It describes the declaration, rather than how categories are classified in Reflect. Click the image to view the table at full size.
