Exporting Opening Balances
To export the employee opening balances, go to Payroll settings > Opening balances.
Next, click on the Export button, located on the top right hand side of the page. The following Import Opening Balances page will be displayed:
From the Data type drop down, you can choose three options:
- "Template with employee data": this template will list only active/current employees in the payroll system;
- "Template with employee data (including terminated employees)": this template will list all active and terminated employees in the payroll system;
- "Empty Template": this template does not list any employees; only the relevant opening balance fields.
Once you have selected the appropriate Data type and file format, click 'Download'.
What are each of the columns in the Opening Balances template?
This list explains what each column represents. You'll find further clarification of the information provided lances page of one of your employee's records.
Columns A to J are always constant regardless of your payroll setup. They are as follows:
ExternalID - this relates to an employee ID you may be using that comes from another external system. This is captured from the "External Id" field in the employee's Details screen.
Column B: TaxFileNumber - this is captured from the "Tax File Number" field in the employee's Tax File Declaration screen.
Column C: PayrollId - this is captured from the "STP Payroll ID" field in the employee's Opening Balances > STP screen. By default, an employee's STP Payroll ID is identical to their employee ID unless it has been changed to replicate the employee's payroll id of the previous payroll system used by the business.
Column D: EmployeeName - this is captured from the employee's "Preferred Name", "Middle Name" and "Surname" fields in the employee's Details screen.
Column E: TotalHours - only required if you want to add Total Hours worked in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (Refer to the Earnings tab of the opening balances page of the employee's record).
Column F: GrossEarnings - the total of gross earnings paid in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (This is displayed at the bottom of the Earnings tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). NB. You can just enter a total gross earnings figure in this column if you wish but if you choose to enter amounts for specific pay categories (see other columns in the spreadsheet labelled PCxxx, explained below), do NOT enter a total here. The system will calculate the total of all of the Pay Category columns in the spreadsheet once imported and so will automatically calculate the total for this column.
Column G: PAYG - the total PAYG deducted from gross earnings paid in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (This field is displayed on the Super & PAYG tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). If you plan on reporting SFSS and HELP separately DO NOT include those amounts in this field.
Column H: STSL/HELPPayments - total HELP repayments (if opening balance is prior to the 2019/2020 FY) or total STSL repayments (if opening balance is the 2019/2020 FY or after) deducted from gross earnings paid in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (This field is displayed on the Super & PAYG tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). If your previous payroll system cannot report separate amounts for PAYG and HELP/STSL, then leave this field blank as the HELP/STSL amount will be incorporated in the PAYG column.
Column I: SFFSLoanPayments - total SFFS repayments (if opening balance is prior to the 2019/2020 FY) deducted from gross earnings paid in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (This field is displayed on the Super & PAYG tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). If your previous payroll system cannot report separate amounts for PAYG and SFFS, then leave this field blank as the SFFS amount will be incorporated in the PAYG column.
Column J: SuperContributions - total SG contributions paid in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (This field is displayed on the Super & PAYG tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). You must ensure the amount entered here EXCLUDES and salary sacrifice super and/or member voluntary amounts as they are recorded separately in the deductions section.
Column K: EmployerContributions - total of other super paid in the initial financial year, up to the day before the period start date of the first pay run in this payroll system. (This field is displayed on the Super & PAYG tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). This figure will be displayed as RESC on the employee's income statement.
The following column numbers will vary for each business and depends on the business setup but the category orders are the same for everyone. They are as follows:
Leave Categories: The next group of columns represent all the leave categories set up in your Leave Categories' payroll settings. In the template they are labelled as LC, then a number (which is the system generated ID code for the leave category), then the name of the leave category, eg. "LC262968_Annual Leave". For these fields you will enter the employee's leave balance in the relevant unit type that the leave category has been configured to, for example, if the leave category has been set up with the unit type = 'days' then the balance entered must be in days. If the employee does not have a leave balance or the leave category is not set to accrue then leave the figure as "0". Negative leave balances need to be entered as "-12.657" (for example).
Deduction Categories: The next group of columns represent each of the deduction categories set up in your Deduction Categories' payroll settings. In the template they are labelled as DC, then a number (which is the system generated ID code for the deduction category), then the name of the deduction category, eg. "DC141225_Member Voluntary Super".
Employer Liability Categories: The next group of columns represent each of the employer liability categories set up in your Employer Liability Categories' payroll settings. In the template they are labelled as EL, then a number (which is the system generated ID code for the employer liability category), then the name of the employer liability category, eg. "ELC628_WorkCover". For these fields you will enter the employee's liability as a dollar amount. If there are no EL columns in your template, this means that no Employer Liability categories are set up in your business.
Pay Categories: The next group of columns represent each of the pay categories set up in your Pay Categories' payroll settings. In the template they are labelled as PC, then a number (which is the system generated ID code for the pay category), then the name of the pay category, eg. "PC959199_Ordinary Hours". For these fields you will enter the employee's pay category breakdown as a dollar amount. You only need to enter amounts in these columns if you:
- want the employee to see a breakdown of their YTD pay by pay category; or
- if you want to report total wages broken down by pay category; or
- have earnings that are classified as anything other than 'Default' in the pay category setting and so are reported separately to gross earnings. For eg pay categories reported as allowances such as JobKeeper, travel allowance, etc.
Otherwise, entering an employee's total gross wage in Column E "GrossEarnings" is sufficient.
Employment Termination Payments (ETPs): The last group of columns relate to any ETPs processed in the financial year for terminated employees in the previous payroll system. This information will be displayed on the Employment Termination Payments (ETPs) tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record. The values entered here will also be used to produce ETP income statements.
Detailed information on each of these fields can be found in this article.
Importing Opening Balances
To import the employee opening balances, go to Payroll settings > Opening balances.
Next, click the Import button to the right of the page heading. The following Import Opening Balances page will be displayed:
Select the file that you wish to upload and then click the Upload button. You will then be asked to "Confirm Upload".
Once the file has imported, a status summary will be displayed:
Matching Criteria
When importing opening balances, employee records are matched according to the following criteria (in order of priority):
- If there is a tax file number specified and it is not a 'special' TFN (see: Special Tax File Numbers), then we'll the tax file number to match the employee
- If there is an external ID specified, then we'll use the external ID to match the employee
- Otherwise, we will use the combination of tax file number AND name to match the employee.
Deleting Data
If you want to use this import file to remove data from the opening balances, in bulk, you'll need to use (clear) including the brackets in the appropriate field on your import file to remove it from the matching field on the opening balance page of the employee record.