Electronic Filing of Wage and Tax Statements is required if submitting 100 or more Form W-2s and/or information returns (Form 1099s), if Alabama income tax was withheld. The due date for filing wage and tax information is February 28.
To upload W-2 information when electronically filing Form A-3 (Annual Reconciliation of Alabama Income Tax Withheld) the file must be in the format specified by Social Security Administration EFW2, formerly MMREF and Alabama Form 10 (Specifications for Filing W2 Forms Electronically) format.Many payroll software packages include a function to export the W-2 information. If your payroll software creates an export file in the EFW2 format as modified by Alabama Form 10 (w2report), it can be used to upload your W-2 information. The file import will accept the full EFW2 file. Since the Department requires only the “RS” records for electronic filing of the W-2’s the program will read each record but will only processes the “RS” records when loading the file. The “RS” record contains the State W-2 information for each employee. You will notice that all other record types are “Skipped” in the file preview of the file upload.
We have developed a utility that will check your file for formatting errors. This error checker is an excel spreadsheet that will read check the RS record for errors. Click here for instructions and to download the file check utility: Check Your W2Report file for errors.
If you do not have software that will create this file for you or your software does not include this function, the Department has provided a spreadsheet program that will create a file that can be uploaded to the Paperless Filing System. Click here for information on using the spreadsheet provided by the Department to create your W2 file.
Information for taxpayers using the EFW2/AL Form 10 File
The full EFW2 files can be lengthy and can take longer to process because the system has to read each record to determine if the record will load. The Department has provided a utility that will export the Alabama “RS” (State code of “01” or “AL”) from your “w2report” file to create an “ALW2REPORT” file. Using this file export utility on a “w2report” file that contains “RE”, “RA”, “RW” and “RT” will reduce the size of the file by about one half. This export is not required but can reduce the amount of time it takes to complete your filing.
Important information for taxpayers using the EFW2 file and are reporting W-2 information to other states in addition to Alabama
The file uploaded must contain only Alabama “RS” records (State code of “01” or “AL”). If your file contains “RS” records from other states you will receive an error when the online filing system reconciles the W-2’s loaded to the amounts reported on the A-3. If your software does not allow you to export a file with only Alabama records (State code of “01” or “AL”) and your file contains “RS” records for other states you will need to remove the other states “RS” records. This export utility can also be used for this purpose.
Does your W2report contain carriage returns or line feeds after each record?
AL Form 10 specifies that the file shall not contain record delimiters including carriage returns or line feeds. If your w2report file contains carriage returns or line feeds they must be removed from the file. This utility can also be used to remove the carriage returns or line feeds.
The export utility is available in Word & Excel, these files use VBA macros to read each record and export from the w2report all Alabama “RS” records to a new file without carriage returns or line feeds.
Instructions for using the Utility:
1) To use the export utility the original EFW2/Form 10 file should be named "w2report".
2) Download one of the export utilities;
AL_Export_Utility.doc(right click on link to save file) Updated: 04/01/2009
AL_Export_Utility.xls (right click on link to save file) Updated: 04/01/20093) Open the utility.
A Security Warning will appear.
4) Select Enable Macros.
If the Security Warning screen does not appear you will need to change the security setting.To change the Security Settings in either Excel and Word. :
From the Menu select Tools, Macro, Security
Select the Security Level tab, then select the Medium option and click OK.
After changing this setting reopen the file and select Enable Macros.5) Click on the "Export Alabama RS records to ALW2Report " Button.
Either type the path where your file is located or if it is located in one of the following directories select use the dropdown box to select the :
A:\
C:\
C:\Documents and Settings\......\My Documents\
C:\W2report\6) Enter in the input box the full name of your file (if it has an extension include the extension ex. ".txt".
The Export utility will read each record and write only Alabama RS records (RS records that have state codes of either "AL" or "01") to a new file named ALW2REPORT. The new file will be saved in the same directory that the original file is located and notify when the process is complete. Use the new file to upload to the Paperless Filing System. The original file will not be changed
