California Pay Data Upload Preflight Checklist

Start from CRD's official Excel templates or CSV examples, not a renamed prior-year workbook. The files verified for this guide are Reporting Year 2025: payroll has 25 columns and labor contractor has 29. They are separate layouts, with contractor identity and snapshot fields present only in the contractor detail file.

The 2025 user guide says that uploaded files must conform to the current template even when filing for a previous reporting year. Keep the report's data year separate from the format edition used by the portal. Confirm the 2026 format and portal requirements when issued before a new upload; the 2025 layouts below are edition-specific examples.

For Reporting Year 2026, plan to submit by May 12, 2027, calculated from the CRD FAQ's annual second-Wednesday-of-May rule. As checked September 6, 2026, the published handbook and templates still cover Reporting Year 2025. Keep the edition-specific examples below distinct from the 2026 report, and use the matching 2026 handbook, templates and portal guidance when issued before finalizing the submission.

Appendix C of the 2025 handbook accepts .xlsx and .csv files up to 20 MB and requires a header row. For Excel, pay data by establishment must be on the first worksheet. Preserve the official headers and column order, and keep calculation sheets or explanatory notes out of the first-tab export data.

For CSV, CRD directs users to remove commas inside field values before upload. Do not remove the actual delimiter commas separating columns. Inspect the exported file as data so a comma in an establishment description does not shift later values into the wrong fields. Preserve identifiers and codes in the required format instead of allowing spreadsheet conversions to alter them.

Use Appendix C and the current code-list sheet to validate job category, race/ethnicity/sex, pay band, exemption status and employment type. The 2025 taxonomy includes Middle Eastern or North African categories. Do not assume an older code list contains every valid value or that a familiar free-text description is an accepted code.

Check positive whole-number group counts, annual hours rounded to the nearest positive whole number, and mean/median rates rounded to two decimal places. Annual weeks also use the specified whole-number rounding. The handbook and FAQ ask for the new exemption, employment-type and weeks data, although the template and Appendix C mark those fields optional for upload validation. Review the data guidance as well as the asterisks.

Reconcile group counts to establishment totals and remote-category counts to their employee groups. Validate calculations from the source population, because a portal can accept numeric values that still reflect the wrong employees or earnings basis.

In this fictional example, Willow Point Analytics reviews a payroll export against the published 2025 template before release. The issues below are internal findings, not quoted portal error messages. Each repair has a source and a check that the corrected file still reconciles.

Salary payment alone does not determine exemption status. Repair the underlying classification decision rather than replacing text with an arbitrary valid dropdown value.

The user guide states that selecting Import Data deletes existing establishment and employee detail information to prevent duplicates. Treat reimport as a replacement operation. Preserve the current draft and any manual changes first, then prepare the complete intended replacement dataset instead of assuming a file containing only repaired rows will append safely.

Review the import summary, download the success and error files where provided, and inspect the imported establishment detail. Resolve errors in the source or through the permitted portal workflow, keeping the source and portal versions aligned. An import that finished successfully is not yet a certified submission. Reconcile the final imported counts with the approved export before proceeding.

The handbook requires a knowledgeable, authorized official employed by the reporting employer to certify completeness and accuracy. A third party may prepare the report, and the official may authorize electronic filing of the certification, but the required review must actually occur. Record the official's approval of the specific final version rather than inventing a sign-off.

After actual certification, retain the completion evidence and available report output described in the user guide. For errors discovered in a certified report before the deadline or within seven calendar days afterward, the handbook describes decertifying and correcting. More than seven days after the deadline, contact CRD with the error description. Do not assume the early correction procedure remains available indefinitely.