Importing Employee Deductions in Bulk – Your Payroll Australia

If you are needing to update employee deductions in bulk, you can do this via the Payroll settings > Import pay run inclusions page.

This article contains the following information:

Exporting a file template
Instructions for import fields
Importing the deduction file
Reports

Exporting a file template

To help with the process of importing employee deductions in bulk, it's recommended that you first obtain a file template by going to the Payroll settings > Data extracts page and exporting one. Simply select 'Employee deductions' as the 'Data type', and the required 'File format':

Once you click 'Download', the export file will contain the following headers:

Employee Id
Employee First Name
Employee Surname
Employee External Id
Employee deduction Id
Deduction Name	Options are: List of all active deduction categories available to business, as per UI
Deduction Type	Options are: Fixed Percentage of gross Percentage of OTE Percentage of NET
Amount	Numbers only
Paid To	Options are: Paid manually Paid to a super fund Paid to a bank account Paid via BPAY
Paid To Account Name	Options are: List of bank account records set up. Each employee will have their own unique bank account records, as per UI
Super Fund	Options are: List of super account records set up. Each employee will have their own unique super account records, as per UI
BPAY Account	Options are: List of BPay account records set up. Each employee will have their own unique BPay account records, as per UI
Payment Reference
Preserved Earnings	Options are: Never Once a minimum net earnings limit has been reached Once a percentage of net earnings limit has been reached
Preserved Earnings Amount
Preserved Earnings Amount Not Reached Action	Options are: Do not pay the deduction Pay the deduction up to the preservation limit
Carry Forward Unpaid Deductions	Options are: True False
Carry Forward Unused Preserved Earnings	Options are: True False
From Date
Expiry Date
Maximum Amount Paid
Total Amount Paid
Notes

Use this template in order to enter the required data that is to be imported back into the system.

Instructions for import fields

The following information applies to each field upon import:

EmployeeID: Mandatory;
EmployeeFirstName: Changes made to this field will not be imported. Changes should be made via the employee import;
EmployeeSurname: Changes made to this field will not be imported. Changes should be made via the employee import;
EmployeeExternalId; Changes made to this field will not be imported. Changes should be made via the employee import;
Employee deduction Id: This is the system Id, and only applicable for existing deductions. If you provide an Id that matches an existing deduction, that record will be updated. If this field is blank, a new record will be created;
DeductionName: Mandatory. Only values listed in the drop down are accepted, and these represent the active deduction categories associated with the business;
DeductionType: Mandatory. Only values listed in the drop down are accepted, and these represent the active deduction categories associated with the business;
Amount: Mandatory. Only numbers accepted. The value provided here will be set in the $ or % field according to what was selected for 'Deduction type';
PaidTo: Mandatory. Only values listed in the drop down are accepted. The following conditions apply:
- Where the deduction type is RESC, the 'PaidTo' value must be paid to a super fund.
- Paid to a super fund is only available for RESC and post-tax deduction types;
PaidToAccountName: This field is mandatory if the ‘PaidTo’ value provided is ‘Paid to a bank account’. Only values listed in the drop down are accepted, unless the template is empty. If the empty template is selected, the format accepted is <bank account name> (***<last 4 digits of bank account number>). The 4 digits provided must match to an existing employee bank account that has been set up in the employee file.
SuperFund: This is mandatory if ‘PaidTo’ value provided is ‘Paid to a super fund’. Only values listed in the drop down are accepted, unless the template is empty. If the empty template is selected, the format accepted is <super fund name> (***<super fund account number>). The super fund account number provided must match to an existing employee super fund that has been set up in the employee file.
BPAYAccount: Mandatory if ‘PaidTo’ value provided is ‘Paid via BPAY’. Only values listed in the drop down are accepted, unless the template is empty. If the empty template is selected, the format accepted is BPAY account name (***<last 4 digits of BPAY CRN). The 4 digits provided must match to an existing employee BPAY account that has been set up in the employee file.
PaymentReference: This is a free text field and is only applicable if ‘PaidTo’ value is set as ‘Pay to a bank account’;
PreservedEarnings: Only values listed in the drop down are accepted. If a value is not provided, the ‘PreservedEarnings’ option will be set to ‘Never’;
PreservedEarningsAmount: This field is mandatory if the ‘PreservedEarnings’ value is NOT ‘Never’;
PreservedEarningsAmountNotReachedAction: Only values listed in the drop down are accepted;
CarryForwardUnpaidDeductions: Values are ‘True’ and ‘False’;
CarryForwardUnusedPreservedEarnings: Values are ‘True’ and ‘False’;
FromDate: If this is not provided, the ‘when should this pay run inclusion start?’ field in the employee’s pay run inclusion screen will be set to ‘Today’;
ExpiryDate: Only 'ExpiryDate' or 'MaximumAmountPaid' can be set. If neither 'ExpiryDate' or 'MaximumAmountPaid' are provided, the ‘when should this pay run inclusion expire?’ field in the employee’s pay run inclusion screen will be set to ‘Never’;
MaximumAmountPaid: Only 'ExpiryDate' or 'MaximumAmountPaid' can be set;
TotalAmountPaid: This field is a calculated field which uses pay run data and only applies if the ‘MaximumAmountPaid’ is provided. Changes made to this field will not be imported;
Notes: Optional. Free text field.

Importing the deduction file

Once you have saved your import file, navigate to the Payroll settings > Import pay run inclusions page. The deduction type is set to 'Employee deductions' by default, and you simply need to 'Select file' or drag the relevant file across:

When data can only be partially imported, the system will import the records that are able to be imported and ignore the ones that can’t be imported. You see the following message if this happens, which contains 2 sections which includes the details of errors which prevented a record from importing, and details of employees that were successful :

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Upon a successful import, you'll be able to see the changes within the Employee file > Pay run inclusions page.

Reports

Changes made to deductions via the via bulk import file will be listed in the employee details audit report, and can be filtered using the 'Pay run inclusions' section:

The results will display the following:

Type of pay run inclusion
Old value
New value: