Analysis: The majority of income data is still submitted correctly, while a slight increase can be seen in wage corrections
4/14/2023Last year, earnings payment data was corrected nearly six million times in the Incomes Register. The number of replacement reports increased from the previous year, while that of employer’s separate reports remained unchanged. Instead, both types of earnings payment reports showed an increase in cancelled reports.
Benefits payment data required the fewest corrections.
Replacement and cancelled reports relative to the total number of reports
| Earnings payment reports | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Replacement reports (percentage of valid reports) | 4.2 % | 3.1 % | 3.0 % |
| Cancelled reports (percentage of all reports) | 3.7 % | 2.6 % | 3.5 % |
| Employer’s separate reports | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
| Replacement reports (percentage of valid reports) | 1.5 % | 1.5 % | 2.0 % |
| Cancelled reports (percentage of all reports) | 2.9 % | 2.6 % | 2.9 % |
| Benefits payment reports | 2022 | 2021* | |
| Replacement reports (percentage of valid reports) | 1.3 % | 1.5 % | |
| Cancelled reports (percentage of all reports) | 0.05 % | 0.1 % | |
| * The reporting of benefits payment data to the Incomes Register started in 2021. | |||
Data is usually corrected by submitting a replacement report
A replacement report is the primary method of correcting any incorrect data reported to the Incomes Register. As indicated by its name, a replacement report replaces the original report submitted to the Incomes Register.
Replacement reports cannot be submitted in certain situations. You must correct a report by means of cancellation if, for example, you have entered an incorrect Business ID or personal identity code, or you want to correct the payment date or the type of exception to insurance.
No changes in reasons for correcting earnings payment data
Corrections are much more common in earnings payment data than in benefits. The correction of earnings payment data in the Incomes Register has been analysed twice: at the end of 2021 and most recently at the beginning of 2023.
According to the analysis completed earlier this year, the methods of and reasons for corrections have remained unchanged. Incorrect or insufficient data is corrected in the Incomes Register: usually, income types are changed or information about an unjust enrichment is added.
– While most earnings payment reports are still only corrected once, the number of reports corrected 2–7 times is especially increasing. This may be explained by earnings payment software automatically resending the entire record, even if only some reports included in the record were corrected, says Sari Wulff, Leading Specialist at the Incomes Register.
The same trend can be seen in cancelled reports: in all reports cancelled last year, 83% had no changes in their content when comparing the cancelled report and its replacement report. This indicates that all reports included in a single record are cancelled and resubmitted, not only the incorrect reports.
Most earnings payment software supports corrections through APIs
Of earnings payment data, 94% is reported to the Incomes Register directly from earnings payment software through an application programming interface (API).
Regarding the earnings payment software included in the Incomes Register’s survey, 88% also enables submitting replacement reports through an API. Of earnings payment software enabling cancellations, 35.5% automatically generates a new report in place of a cancelled report. Significantly more than a third (41%) of earnings payment software allows some errors to be corrected in the software, while some corrections have to be made manually in the Incomes Register’s e-service.
When examining the correction of several reports at the same time, earnings payment software was divided into three equally large groups: in the first group, software enables extensive corrections; some corrections are possible in the second group, while the third group does not allow any types of corrections.
Previously on the same theme:
Analysis: Most earnings payment data is reported correctly – only few corrections are made