Copying and Reusing Data From a Previous Submission
In this article, we’ll walk through how to submit emergency savings account (ESA) payroll contributions based on data from a previous ESA contribution submission. If you’ve already made an ESA payroll contribution during a previous pay cycle and have minimal to no changes for the current pay period submission, then this method might be a good option.
1. Navigate to the Contributions Tab on Your ESA Portal
After logging into your employer portal and selecting your ESA program on the dashboard, click on the contributions icon on the left-hand side of your ESA portal, as shown below. The contributions tab icon looks like a hand holding a coin. This will bring you to the correct page for uploading your ESA payroll contributions file.
Once you have navigated to the “Contributions” page, click Start Contribution.
2. Select to Copy a Previous Submission
On the contributions dashboard on the left-hand side next to Upload File, click on the button that says Copy from [Date]. This date will reflect the last processed payroll contribution date. The data displayed will always be from the previous contribution submission within the same pay group and for the same type of submission (regular versus off-cycle).
3. Make Any Changes Needed
The only column you’ll be able to edit will be the white-shaded column labeled “Savings $ Amount.” This column will include employee ESA deductions, the dollar amount each employee chose to save towards their ESA, from your last payroll contribution submission. If your employees have made changes to their savings amount since the last pay cycle, you will need to manually enter the new savings amount in this column for the applicable employees.
You can retrieve this information from your payroll system after you run payroll. Copy over each employee’s savings amount from your payroll system into this column. Any automatically calculated values, such as “Employer Match,” “Initial Deposit Bonus,” and “Milestone Bonus” will not be carried over from your previous submission. They will be recalculated and refreshed.
3. Review Your Contributions Data
After making any necessary changes, verify that the previous data displayed on your ESA portal is accurate. You can sort any column on the contribution table by clicking on that column header. When you click, you will see an arrow pointing up or down. The “down” arrow will sort the column from greatest value to least value, and the “up” arrow will sort the column from least value to greatest value. Click again on the same column header to change the direction of the sorting.
You will also be able to view the contribution totals summarized at the bottom of the screen. These represent the totals across all employees for the designated pay cycle.
- "Employee Contribution" shows the total ESA contribution amount made across all participating employees for this pay period. This is the total amount deducted from all employee paychecks towards saving in their ESA.
- "Employer Match" shows the total ESA match amount you are providing towards your employees’ ESAs for this pay period if you offer a match.
- "Initial Deposit Bonus" shows the total sign-up bonus amount you are providing for applicable employees’ that hit the initial deposit threshold you have set during program setup if you offer an initial deposit bonus.
- "Milestone Bonus" shows the total milestone bonus amount you are providing towards your applicable employees’ ESAs, if you offer one.
4. Send Your Contributions Data for Validation
Once you have reviewed the contributions data displayed on your portal and are satisfied, click the Send & Validate button to proceed. If the button is gray and unable to be clicked, this means you have missing or invalid information you will need to correct before proceeding.
5. Perform a Final Review of Your Submission
You will now be brought to a “Review Submission” page for a final review of the contribution details you have provided for this pay cycle. This page will show a summary of the contribution details for this pay cycle, including the total contribution amount that will be deducted from your bank account. This total is inclusive of all employee contributions withheld from employee paychecks and any employer contributions. On this review page, you will have the opportunity to take several actions:
- You can click Edit Submission to go back and make further edits to the data.
- You can click Cancel Submission to delete the submission and start over.
- You can click Complete Submission to fully submit the contribution data.
If you click Complete Submission to complete your contributions data submission for this pay cycle, a confirmation screen will pop up confirming that you have successfully submitted your contributions data for further processing. The submission process is now complete and you can click the Back to Transactions button to return to the “Contributions” dashboard.
Even after you receive this submission confirmation, you will have 1 hour to cancel the submission if needed. You can do this by clicking on the three dots next to your submission on the contributions dashboard and choosing Cancel.
If you have any questions during your ESA payroll contribution submission process, you can reach out to clientsuccess@vestwell.com.