How To Upload Your Payroll Contribution File

This article will walk you through the process of uploading your payroll contributions via Excel or CSV file.

if you have many employees or if you're downloading a contribution file from your payroll provider, uploading a file to the portal is likely the best approach for submitting contributions.

If you prefer to submit contributions manually, you can learn about that process in our article How to Submit Contributions Manually.

Guidelines for Contribution File Format and Data

Before you upload your contributions file, make sure the file is formatted correctly and your employee data is up to date. You can also download a template in the portal that will help you manage your employee data and upload your payroll contributions each month.

Check Your File Format

You must upload an Excel or CSV file.
The file must have four columns with headers that contain employee information:

Social Security Number
First Name
Last Name
Roth Contribution

It's okay if your file contains additional columns along the columns listed above, the system will ignore those columns in the upload process.

Check and Update Your Employee Data

For a seamless upload, your file must contain accurate employee information that matches the data in your employee's tab. If you have questions about your Employee Details, learn more about Employee Details.

How to Upload Your Contributions File

Sign In

Navigate to the Contributions Dashboard:

Sign in to the portal with your email address and password.
Click on the Contributions tab.

In the Contributions section, click Start Contribution.

Upload Your File

On the contributions page. Click Upload Payroll File.

Search and select the correct Excel or CSV payroll contribution file from your device. Click Open to upload.

Review Your Submission

Review the employee data automatically imported into the grid. Note: You can sort data on the grid by clicking the arrows in the column headers.

View your submission summary in the footer, including the dollar amount and number of employees. If the data is correct and there are no errors, click Send & Validate.

You will be prompted to Review Submission:

Confirm the total $ amount.
Verify your payment instructions.
Review contribution adjustment details, if applicable.

After Review Submission, there are 3 possible actions you can take:

Complete Submission.
Edit Submission.
Cancel.

Complete Your Submission

After you click Complete Submission, you will be redirected back to the contributions page. In the History section, you can view your Total Contribution, Contribution Details, Summary, and Status of your Contributions.

The status of your submission is indicated by a star in the status tracker, The current submission status is also reflected in the History section on the Contributions tab.

Statuses:

Started: You started a submission but did not complete it.
Submitted: Your submission has been sent for processing.
Processing: Your submission is processing and you cannot make edits.
Delivered: Your submission has been delivered.

Once your contribution has been successfully processed, you will receive a confirmation email.

How to Resolve Uploading Errors

You may encounter errors in the process of uploading your payroll contributions file. In order to complete your submission, you need to resolve the errors, which are highlighted in red through the grid and displayed in total on the contributions page.

Resolve Data Matching Errors

Header Validations

The system may have difficulty matching headers from your file to the required fields. This will trigger a pop-up window with details about Matching Headers from Your File.

Select the column header from your file that corresponds with the required fields.
You must do this for all of the required fields for the data to successfully upload. You can also update the file to have the expected header names and re-upload the file.
Click Continue.

Grid Validations

The system may have difficulty matching information from your file to the grid. Errors will be highlighted in red and there will be an error counter in the top right corner.

Resolve all of the errors until the error count is "0"
Click Send & Validate.

Resolve Employee Data Errors

When you upload the file, the employees you uploaded will appear on your payroll contribution grid. Learn more about Adding Employees.

Missing information, duplicate information, bad formats, or invalid employee data will trigger red errors.
Double check employee SSN, Name, and Eligibility/Active Status for accuracy.

Understanding Unallowed Contributions

After you click Send & Validate, you may encounter a message with details about Unallowed Contributions, i.e. negative contributions, contributions for ineligible employees, contributions over the annual IRS limit.

You will be prompted to review the Unallowed Contributions before you can complete your submission.

Learn more about Contribution Validation Errors and Unallowed Contributions.