Import Opening Balances

Dominic Beckham

Updated 11 August 2025 00:55

Available for the following plans: Employment Lite, Employment Plus
Available for the following Payroll plans: Standard, Premium

Once you have completed the spreadsheet, you can then import the employee opening balances in bulk. The Importing Opening Balances feature allows your organisation's payroll admins to upload completed opening balance templates and process employee data efficiently. This feature includes automatic employee matching, status reporting, and data management options to ensure accurate payroll setup.

Getting started

Importing opening balances

From the payroll dashboard, click on the Payroll Settings tab.
Click Opening Balances (listed under the Business Settings header).
Click on Import (top right hand side).
Click Opening Balances.
Click on Select file.
Select the file from your computer.
Click Open.
Click Confirm upload?.

Once the file has imported, a status summary will be displayed.
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Matching Criteria

When importing opening balances, employee records are matched according to the following criteria (in order of priority):

If there is an IRD number specified, then we'll use the IRD 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 IRD 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 enter the value "0" (without the quotes) in the appropriate field on your import file. This will revert the figure back to zero once the import is complete.

Alternatively you will notice an option to clear the opening balances / historic gross earnings you have entered for the employee. This works on a 'per tab' basis. If you choose to clear the data within that particular tab keep in mind the relevant reports will be updated. This feature is especially helpful if you have a high level of data entered.

This works on a 'per tab' basis. If you choose to clear the data within that particular tab keep in mind the relevant reports will be updated. This feature is especially helpful if you have a high level of data entered.