If your organization has an employer-sponsored registered pension plan (RPP) or a deferred profit-sharing plan (DPSP), you’ll need to include a pension adjustment on your tax slips. There are two ways to create pension adjustments (PA) for your employee’s tax slips:
Create a formula that calculates the PA.
Import the PA.
This article will guide you through importing the PA. If you calculate your PAs using a formula, go to Pension Adjustment Formulas for more information.
Important Information
Be sure to extract your employee data before importing the adjustments. If you extract or re-extract after you’ve imported the PAs, it will overwrite the PAs, and you’ll need to import them again.
Benefits of importing your PAs:
You can import adjustments for multiple employees at once.
You can re-import the adjustments in a single step if you need to extract your tax slips again.
You can import adjustments multiple times and add them to the existing tax slip data.
Additional Information
All the pension plan numbers will be included in your transmission file to the CRA, as per their specifications.
If you don’t need to import pension adjustments, skip to the next step in the tax slip checklist, Review, Modify, and Add Employee Tax Slips.
How Many Import Files Do You Need
If you're importing for employees in different tax slip groups, you’ll need to create a separate import file for each tax slip group. Additionally, you’ll need to create an additional import file if you need to replace information and update information currently in Avanti.
For example, you’ll need to create two import files if you have employees that need updated information in Avanti for Box 20 and 52, but also need to replace the pension plan number in box 50. You’ll need to create two import files for each tax slip group.
How to Set up the File
The first three columns of the file contain the information to identify the employee, the tax slip, and the employee’s province of employment.
The remaining columns identify the tax slip box and then the tax slip box amount. You can include as many tax slip boxes as you wish for each employee by entering the tax slip box in the next column, then the tax slip amount in the column after that, etc.
You can either have the amounts in this file replace the existing tax slip amount in Avanti or add to Avanti’s existing amount.
Additional Information
Only the tax slip boxes included in the import file will be affected by the import. The import will not change any boxes that are not included in the import file.
Do you want to import a PA for an employee who doesn’t have an Employee Profile in Avanti? Go to Importing Your Employee Tax Slip Information for more details.
How to Identify the Employee in the Import File
If you’re importing pension adjustment for employees with an Employee Profile in Avanti, this will identify the employee and the tax slip you’re importing.
If you’re importing an RPP or DPSP registration number, you need to create two import files; one with boxes 20 and 52, one with box 50.
Step 1: Save a copy of the import file provided by your pension provider. If the file isn’t a .csv, .xls, or .xlsx file, please save it as a .csv or excel file.
Step 2: Adjust the file so T4 is in Column A. This identifies the type of tax slip you’re creating or adjusting.
Step 3: Adjust the file so Column B is the employee number.
Additional Information
If you allow alphanumeric employee numbers, you’ll need to ensure the employee number is nine characters and includes all leading zeros.
Step 4: Adjust the file so Column C features the two-character abbreviation of the province for the tax slip. Here is a list of the valid province abbreviations.
AB Alberta
BC British Columbia
MB Manitoba
ON Ontario
NB New Brunswick
NL Newfoundland & Labrador
NS Nova Scotia
NT Northwest Territories
NU Nunavut
PE Prince Edward Island
QC Quebec
SK Saskatchewan
YT Yukon Territory
Step 5: Save your import file. This is the file to import boxes 20 and 52.
Step 6: If you’re importing an RPP or DPSP registration number into box 50, save another copy of your import file, and indicate in the file name its to import box 50.
Congratulations! You’re all done adjusting the file to identify your employees and are ready to add the tax slip boxes.
How to Add Box 20 and 52 to the Import File
Update the import file to include your adjustments for box 20 and 52.
Step 1: Open the file to import boxes 20 and 52.
Step 2: Adjust the file so 20 is in column D is your employee’s RPP contributions.
Additional Information
This should be on the same row as the employee information added in the How to Identify the Employee in the Import File section above.
Step 3: Adjust the file so box 20 amount is in column E.
Additional Information
The amount always populates the tax slip box in the column to its left.
Step 4: Adjust the file so 52 is in column F for each employee with a Pension adjustment.
Step 5: Adjust the file so box 52 amount is in column G.
Step 6: Remove all other columns from the import file.
Step 7: Save the file.
How to Add Box 50 to the Import File
Box 50 should be imported in its own import file as it can affect boxes 20 and 52. Do not add Box 50 to the file that imports boxes 20 and 52. If you don’t need to import box 50, skip to the How To Import the PA File With Box 20 and 52 section below.
If some of your employees are members of multiple pension plans, include the pension registration number for the larger amount.
Step 1: Open the file to import box 50.
Step 2: Adjust the file so 50 is in column D for each employee that needs an RPP or DPSP registration number imported.
Step 4: Adjust the file so the RPP or DPSP registration number is in column E.
Step 5: Remove all other columns from the import file.
Step 6: Save the file.
You’re now ready to import your PA import files.
How To Import the PA File With Box 20 and 52
Be sure to extract your employee data before importing the adjustments. If you extract or re-extract after you’ve imported the PAs, it will overwrite your PAs, and you’ll need to re-import.
Step 1: Open Import External Tax Slip Data in the Avanti Desktop Application.
By default, this can be found in Canadian Payroll >> Tax Slip Processing.
Step 2: Select 2022 in the Tax Year, if it’s not already selected.
Step 3: Select the correct group in the Tax Slip Group.
Step 4: Select if you would like to import the File from Files or OneDrive.
Step 5: Select the arrow to the right of the Import File.
Step 6: Navigate to the location of the file you created and select the file. Then select Open.
Additional information
If you are importing a CSV file, you will need to change the file type to CSV files (*.csv) for the file to be visible.
Step 6: Select Add to existing to add the amounts in the import file to the amounts in Avanti tax slips.
Additional Information
Only the tax slip boxes which are included in the import data will be affected by the import. The import will not change any boxes that aren’t included in the import file.