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Flow’s data templates hold everything Flow needs to take over your payroll: pay elements, employees, year-to-date figures, pensions and anything still in progress. Fill them in from your old provider’s reports, then either import them yourself or send them to your onboarding contact and they’ll do it for you. Before you start, make sure your organisation, HMRC details and pay schedule are set up in Flow. See Switch to Flow Payroll.

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Watch how it works

Filling in the templates and importing them into Flow (1 min 33 sec)

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Which templates you need

Download the templates you need and fill them in in this order. Pay elements come first, so that employees, balances and recurring payments map to them cleanly.

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Fill in the templates

Every template works the same way. Each one has an Instructions sheet explaining what it’s for, and a data sheet where you add one row per record.
  • Pink columns are required. Grey columns are optional, but fill them in where you have the information.
  • Hover over a header to see what the column means, the format it needs, and the values it accepts.
  • Don’t rename, reorder or delete the header row. Extra columns added at the end are ignored.
  • Row 2 is an example. Leave it for reference or delete it before you import.
  • Dates can be DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD. Money uses two decimal places and no £ sign. Yes/No fields also accept True/False or 1/0.
Use the same payroll ID for each employee in every template, and make it the same payroll ID they had with your old provider. The templates use it to link pensions, holiday and court orders to the right person, and HMRC uses it to recognise your existing employees. If payroll IDs change, HMRC can treat existing employees as new starters, which creates duplicate employment records and incorrect tax codes.

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Template notes

One row for each earning, deduction or information line you use, such as Basic Salary, Overtime, Bonus or Season Ticket Loan. Don’t list which employees get each one; that comes later.Pick a short, stable Code for each element (for example OVERTIME). Other templates use the code to refer back to it.
One row per employee, with their personal, employment, tax, NI, bank and address details. The required minimum is first name, last name, email, birth date, birth gender, start date, starter declaration and hours worked.
  • Payroll Config must match the name of a pay schedule in Flow exactly, for example Monthly Payroll.
  • Starter Declaration: for existing employees, use whatever HMRC currently holds for them.
  • Switching mid-year? Fill in the YTD columns at the end of the sheet, so tax, NI, student loan, pension and statutory pay continue from the right totals. Switching on 6 April? Leave them blank.
  • Directors using the annual NI method also need the director YTD NI columns.
Your organisation’s year-to-date totals that are reported to HMRC on the Employer Payment Summary (EPS): Employment Allowance used, Apprenticeship Levy, and statutory pay reclaimed. Employee-level totals go in the employees template instead.If you switch part-way through a tax month, add one row for each tax month already paid in your old system (month 1 is 6 April to 5 May), so the EPS for that month includes the full figures.
One row per enrolment. If an employee is in two schemes, add two rows. Worker Category is always required, even for postponed or non-eligible workers.Use either the percentage columns or the fixed amount columns for each side (employee and employer), never both. Year-to-date pension totals go in the employees template.
One row per employee, with their entitlement and current balance. If most employees are on your standard holiday policy, you only need to fill in the columns that differ. Use days or hours consistently for each employee.
One row per active order. Use either a fixed amount or a percentage, not both. For orders with a total debt, such as DEAs and many attachment of earnings orders, include the total owed and the amount already paid, so Flow knows when to stop deducting.
One row per active claim. Include the average weekly earnings and either the paid until date or the number of weeks paid, so Flow continues at the right rate and stops at the right time. Amounts already paid this tax year go in the employees template.

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Import your data

Choose whether to import the templates yourself or have them imported for you.
Import in this order. Each import uses the same five-step wizard: Upload, Map Columns, Validate, Review and Complete. You can upload the template exactly as you filled it in.
1

Import your pay elements

Go to Settings → Pay elements and click Import from CSV. Upload 01-pay-elements.xlsx and follow the wizard.Pay elements →
2

Import your employees

Go to People → Team and click Import CSV, then choose Existing Employees. This mode includes the year-to-date and leaver columns, and doesn’t ask for new-starter details for people who already work for you.
  1. Upload 02-employees.xlsx.
  2. Map Columns. Flow matches your columns automatically and shows a confidence badge for each one. Check any marked Review match, then click Save Mapping so the next import is recognised straight away.
  3. Validate and Review. Flow checks every row. Rows with errors are skipped, so click Download Errors, fix those rows in your file, and import them again.
  4. Click Import to add your employees.
Importing employees →
3

Enter your organisation balances (mid-year only)

Go to Settings → Opening balances and enter the figures from 03-organisation-balances.xlsx.Opening balances →
4

Import active statutory payments

Go to People → Statutory and click Import CSV. Upload 07-statutory.xlsx and follow the wizard.Statutory payments →
5

Send pensions, holiday and court orders

Pensions, holiday balances and court orders don’t have a CSV import yet. Send 04-pension.xlsx, 05-holiday.xlsx and 06-court-orders.xlsx to your onboarding contact and they’ll load them for you.
If you’re importing a lot of employees, try a few rows first. It’s quicker to fix a mapping on a small file than to tidy up a large import.

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Check before your first pay run

Before you approve anything, compare a sample of employees in Flow with their last payslip from your old provider:
  • Tax code, NI category and student loan plan.
  • Year-to-date gross pay, tax and NI (mid-year switches).
  • Pay rates, working patterns, pay elements and pension group.
  • Bank details.
For extra confidence, run your first pay run in Flow alongside your old provider for the same period and compare the results before submitting.

Switch to Flow Payroll

When to switch, what to gather, and closing down your old provider.

Importing data from CSV

How the import wizard works, including saved mappings and default values.