Import/Export Employee Opening Balances (Initial Values)

Exporting Opening Balances

To export the employee opening balances, go to 'Payroll settings' > 'Business Settings' > 'Opening Balances'.

Choose the tax year from the drop down menu you want the opening balances to apply to;

Next, click on the Export button, located on the top right hand side of the page. The following Export Opening Balances page will be displayed:

From the Data type drop down, you can choose three options:

1. 'Template with employee data': this template will list only active/current employees in the payroll system.
2. 'Template with employee data (including terminated employees)': this template will list all active and terminated employees in the payroll system.
3. '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 on the opening balances 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: NationalInsuranceNumber - this is captured from the 'Tax and NI Details' option in the employee profile.  'National Insurance Number' field.

Column C: PayrollId - The Payroll ID is an identifier that you can give to an employee. This identifier is sent to HMRC. An employees payroll ID will follow them between jobs, payroll software and even via their pension provider to identify them. For an employee being migrated over, you can enter the employee identifier from the old system. 

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: PAYE - the total PAYE 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 Pension & PAYE tab on the opening balances page of the employee's record). 

Column H: StudentLoan - If there is a student loan it will be in this column.

Column I: PostGradLoanAmount - If there is a Post Grad Loan Amount it will be in this column.

Column J: TaxReliefPensionAmount - The tax relief pension amount will be here.

Column K: EmployerPensionContributionAmount - Add the employer's pension contribution amount should be entered here.

Column L: EmployeePensionContributionAmount - The employee pension contribution amount should be entered here.

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 Pension'.

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 sterling 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 Phone Allowance, Travel Allowance, etc.    

Otherwise, entering an employee's total gross wage in Column F 'GrossEarnings' is sufficient.

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' > 'Business Settings' > 'Opening Balances'.

Choose the tax year from the drop down menu you want the opening balances to apply to:

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 National Insurance number specified then we will match the NI no to 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 National Insurance 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 the value '(clear)' without the quotes in the appropriate field on your import file to remove it from the matching field on the opening balance page of the employee record.

If you have any questions or feedback please let us know via support@yourpayroll.co.uk