Budgeting
You understand why a wage fringe needs one number and a wage supplement needs three, and you can tell which of the two a given cost belongs to.
Both sit on top of a wage, both are entered as percentages, and both live in the same dialog. They are not the same thing, and the difference is why a supplement asks you for two percentages while a fringe asks for one.
A wage account on its own only carries the wage. **Wage fringes** and **wage supplements** are the two ways KOSMA adds costs that scale with that wage.
Structurally they behave identically: you [define them once](/kb/article/how-settings-work) in Settings and apply them to accounts, the money lands in a [collect-in account](/kb/article/how-collect-in-accounts-work) rather than on the wage line, and both are assigned at account level only — on an account with subaccounts you choose which subaccounts the calculation covers.
A **wage fringe** (*Lohnnebenkosten*) is a statutory employer on-cost — social security, health insurance, pension. It is a fixed percentage of the wage, set by law or by agreement, and it does not vary from one person to the next.
So it needs exactly one number: the percentage.
Social Security, 12% → every wage account it is applied to is charged 12% of its wage.
One refinement: a fringe's base is normally the wage account's total, but a fringe can be told to calculate on *other fringes as well*, for cases where one contribution is legally assessed on top of another.
A **wage supplement** (*Zuschlag*) is a premium on the wage — overtime, night work, weekend work. Its cost depends on two things that a fringe's does not:
1. **How much extra is paid when it occurs.** If the normal hour is 100% and an overtime hour is 125%, the premium is **25%**. This is the *markup on the normal wage*. 2. **How often it is expected to occur.** If a normal week is 50 hours and you expect 5 overtime hours, the supplement applies to **10%** of working time. This is the *percentage of working time*.
Those two are independent. A large premium that almost never happens and a small premium that happens constantly can cost the same.
The second number is only a starting estimate, agreed once for the whole budget. Real productions vary person by person, so each account scales that estimate with a [multiplier](/kb/article/what-the-multiplier-does) — the definition expects 10% overtime, this person will run at 20%, so the multiplier is 2.
| | Wage fringe | Wage supplement | | ------------------------------ | --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | Captures | statutory on-cost | premium for unusual working conditions | | *Lohnnebenkosten* / *Zuschlag* | Lohnnebenkosten | Zuschlag | | Numbers you enter in Settings | one — the percentage | two — markup on wage, percentage of working time | | Adjustable per account | no | yes, with the multiplier | | Varies person to person | no | yes | | Can calculate on other entries | yes, on other fringes | no |
**The short version:** a fringe is a rate. A supplement is a rate, an expectation, and a correction.
By default, yes — an overtime premium is still wage, and statutory contributions are normally due on it.
This is a **setting on each account**, not in Settings, because it is a question about that engagement rather than about the fringe. Switch it off and the fringes on that account are calculated on the wage alone, ignoring the premiums.
If an account is split into subaccounts — typically preparation, shoot and wrap — you select which of them a fringe applies to, and, **separately**, which of them a supplement applies to.
The two selections are deliberately independent, because they are usually different: statutory contributions are due across the whole engagement, whereas overtime and night premiums are usually only incurred during part of it.
**Extra costs** (*Zusatzkosten*) — per-diems, hotels, travel — also attach to a person and are also defined in Settings and applied to accounts. But they are not derived from the wage at all: an extra cost is a quantity times a price, and it would cost the same whatever the person earns. That is the dividing line — see [what extra costs are](/kb/article/what-extra-costs-are).
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