6 - Run your payroll & submit the register

Submitting your payroll register

Once your payroll has been updated with the contribution amounts, it's time to run your payroll. To confirm the amount the plan should deduct from your corporate bank account and allocate as employee and employer contributions, we require information from your payroll register.

If you have an Employer Dashboard account, refer to the 'Through the Employer Dashboard' section. If you do not have an account, refer to the 'Through Email' section.

Through the Employer Dashboard

The Employer Dashboard allows you to securely upload your payroll files directly into our system. In the 'Pay Contributions' tab, you can provide contribution instructions by uploading your payroll register with contribution details for each employee. 

Before you run your payroll

Log in to the Employer Dashboard to see if you have any pending Employee Requests (such as a change in their RRSP or TFSA contribution amount). Update your payroll system with any new requests, and run your payroll.

After you run your payroll

Log in to the Employer Dashboard and go to the 'Pay Contributions' tab

1. Download the payrollregister.xlsx template, and populate it with the contribution information from your payroll system.
2. Upload your payrollregister.xlsx file (within 3 business days of running your payroll). Before you submit your file, you will be able to review the payroll contribution amounts for each employee, and the total contribution amount for that pay period.

Completing your update

1. Review the on-screen summary of total contributions, the split between employee and employer contributions, and the pay period before uploading the file.
2. Click the green “Submit” button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Make sure you see the Success message before you log out.

Once your payroll register is uploaded, instructions go to Canadian Western Trust to automatically withdraw funds from your account for contributions and fees owing to Common Wealth.

Note: This step is completed every payroll cycle. If there have been no changes since your last payroll upload, you can download your last submitted file, update the date columns to reflect the correct pay period, and upload that file.

Errors and warnings

Through Email

• Run your payroll
• Populate the payrollregister.xlsx template that was sent to you via email
• Submit the file within 3 business days of running your payroll

Note: This step is completed every payroll cycle

Submit your payroll register

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Payroll register file dos and don’ts

Do

• Update your pay period start and end dates in each payroll register
• Be sure your payroll start and end dates don’t overlap
• Confirm that all date fields are entered in YYYY-MM-DD format
• Include two decimal points in your contribution columns
• Include both member and employer matching amounts, if applicable

Don’t

• Update or paste over the column headers
• Include formulas or cell references in your file
• Use negative values. If you’ve entered these by mistake, please contact us for help with making corrections.
• Leave any empty rows in your file or include an employee without a contribution

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