Payday Filing

Payday filing is a way of reporting employee pay details to the IRD, which is compulsory from 1 April 2019. Under payday filing you generate and submit an Employment Information (EI) return file for every pay run. The EI return file contains the same information as the old IR348, as well as ESCT amounts for each employee and dates for the pay run. Information about new and departing employees is also submitted to the IRD in a Employee Details (ED) file, which also replaces the KiwiSaver employment details (KS1) and KiwiSaver Opt-out (KS10) forms.

For more information, see "Payday filing" on the IRD's website.

Getting Ready for Payday Filing

Before you can upload EI return files, you need to be registered for filing using the IRD's myIR website. If you currently file your IR348 returns electronically, you will be registered already - if not, you will need to go to the IRD website and register. The IRD's website has information on registering for myIR.

From 1 April 2019, the IRD will shift all businesses to payday filing automatically. If you want to begin using payday filing for months prior to April 2019, you will need to opt in to payday filing manually using the myIR website - the IRD's website has information on shifting to payday filing.

Your first file upload must report from the start of a calendar month. The IRD will not penalise late returns until approximately mid-May 2019. We recommend that you complete the IR348 and IR345 for (month) and then after the upgrade to this release create EI and N&D files for all pay runs prior to the release. After that, create and upload these files within 2 days of each pay run physical pay date.

Note: Make sure not to submit both IR348 and EI files for the same calendar month.

Creating EI Return Files for Payday Filing

EI returns are created automatically every time a pay run is completed. To submit an EI return to the IRD, you must generate a batch file on the Employment Info Return (MP.PP.50.24) form. This form displays the details of the EI return for a selected pay run (only completed pay runs can be selected).

To generate an EI return batch, select a pay run, then select Create Batch from the Actions dropdown. If approvals are enabled for EI returns, the batch will need to be submitted for approval and approved before it can be exported. If the IR 345/348/EI Auto Approve option on the Payroll Preferences (MP.PP.11.00) form is ticked, the batch will be approved as soon as it is created, and can be exported straight away.

Select Export from the Actions dropdown to export the details of the EI return in the CSV format for submitting to the IRD.

Note: If there are employees from multiple companies in selected pay run, one export file will be created for each company.

The exported CSV files can be downloaded from the standard Files window on the Employment Information Return form. To submit these files for payday filing, download them, then log in to the myIR website and upload them. The IRD's website has information, including a video tutorial, on how to payday file through myIR.

The Employment Info Batch Summary (MP.PP.50.32) form shows an overview of all EI return file batches that have been created from the Employment Information Return form (as well as any IR348 batches that were created before the introduction of payday filing).

Reporting New and Departing Employees

Under payday filing, you must provide the IRD with the information of new and departing employees in your organisation. This information is included in a separate Employees (ED) file,which must be uploaded to the myIR website along with the EI return files.

The Employee Details Return (MP.PP.50.25) form lets you create an ED file for a selected period. Specify start and end dates, and the screen will display all employees whose start and/or end date fall within those dates. You must select an option from the KiwiSaver Status column for all employees before you can save and export the ED file. Click Save & Export to save the batch and export a New and Departing Employees file as a CSV file.

As with EI return files, download the ED file from the standard Files window on this screen, then log in to the myIR website and upload them.

The Employee Details Batch Summary (MP.PP.50.33) form shows an overview of all ED file batches that have been created from the Employee Details Return form.