What it is for
When payroll was run somewhere else — Zoho Payroll, ZenHR, Odoo, ERPNext, Tally, Keka, BrightPay, a bank's WPS portal or a spreadsheet — this page brings it across: the people, their pay, what they carry with them (end-of-service gratuity, unpaid leave, loans) and, if you want it, what they were paid. It is separate from Import from Other Software on purpose: salaries are kept behind the payroll permission, so the migration leaves them out and its reviewers never see them.
Nothing changes until you have seen a preview of every row and pressed Apply, and nothing posts to the books. The books' side of those months — the wages, the gratuity provision, what staff owe — comes across with the books, as opening balances or through Data Migration.
What a file can hold
| Table | What it brings in |
|---|---|
| Employees | One row per person: number, name, nationality, date of birth, gender, joining date, job, department, Emirates ID, MOHRE person ID, passport and visa numbers, IBAN, bank and routing code — and their pay as columns (Basic, Housing, Transport…), each column a pay head. |
| Salary structure | The same pay as rows: one row per person and pay head, with the monthly amount. |
| Opening balances | As at the day Accmerio takes over: end-of-service gratuity accrued, unpaid leave taken so far, and a loan still being repaid. |
| Loans and advances | What each person still owes, with the instalment taken each month. |
| Payroll history | What each person was paid each month: a payroll register, with a column per pay head or a row per pay head. |
| WPS salary file | A .SIF file sent to the bank. It has no names, so it adds nobody: it fills in a person's missing IBAN or routing code, and records what they were paid that month. |
One workbook can hold several of these, one per sheet. Starting from a blank sheet, New import offers the column titles to fill in for each.
Bring a file in
- Open Payroll › Payroll Import and press New import.
- Drop the exported file in, or press Choose a file. CSV, Excel and WPS .SIF files are read, up to 25 MB.
- What each column is: each table has been matched to what it most likely holds, and each column to what it most likely means, from its title and its values. Correct anything that is wrong with This table holds and Brings in, then press Save this table. Under Dates and numbers in this file, say how dates and amounts are written if the file was ambiguous. Press Next: check and answer.
- Check and answer: set People already in Accmerio and The day Accmerio takes over payroll. Answer the Questions — most are answered already from the file; check those and answer the rest.
- Read Every row: what would happen to each row, with what changes. Use the filters — Problems, Needs a decision, Refused — to find what needs you, and decide each row that asks.
- Tick what Before it goes in asks, then press Apply. Every row goes in through the same rules as the Employees page; a row that is refused is reported and the rest go in.
- Done shows what happened to every row. Press Download the outcome to keep it.
People already in Accmerio
A row is the same person as someone in Accmerio when the employee number matches. When it does not, but the Emirates ID, MOHRE person ID, IBAN or email does — or the same name joined on the same day — the row asks you to decide: the same person, or somebody else.
| People already in Accmerio | What happens |
|---|---|
| Fill in what is missing; keep what Accmerio has | Empty fields are filled from the file. Where the two disagree, Accmerio's value stays and the row says what the file had. |
| Replace what Accmerio has with the file's values | The file wins. A changed IBAN, routing code, person ID or Emirates ID must be confirmed under Before it goes in. |
| Leave people already in Accmerio as they are | Only new people are added. |
What is checked on the way in
- IBAN: its check digits, and 23 characters for a UAE IBAN. One that fails is left out, with the reason.
- MOHRE person ID (the number the WPS file identifies each person by): up to 14 digits. A spreadsheet drops leading zeros, so they are put back; a number too short to be one is left out.
- Routing code: 9 digits.
- Emirates ID: 15 digits starting 784. A check digit that does not add up is kept with a warning to confirm it on the card.
- Nationality is read from a country, its code or the word for its people (Indian, Emirati).
- Date of birth: one that would make someone younger than 15 on the day they joined is left out, with the reason. It is also compared with the birth year an Emirates ID carries, and a difference is a warning to check the card.
- Gender is read as female, male or other (non-binary, X), in English or Arabic; Prefer not to say is left blank, and a word Accmerio does not know is left out with a warning.
- Where the file has a gross pay column, the pay heads are added up and checked against it.
UAE nationals go on GPSSA, not gratuity: a question chooses the scheme, by default by joining date (the 2023 scheme from 31 October 2023). Nationals of other GCC states are by default handled outside payroll. Everyone else is on end-of-service gratuity.
Pay heads become salary components
Each pay head in the file — Basic Salary, HRA, Transport Allowance, Loan Deduction — is matched to one of your salary components where it clearly is one, or suggested as A new basic salary (counts toward gratuity), A new earning, A new deduction or A new employer cost. Check each under Questions; Leave it out drops it.
A new component is created with the account you choose. Only a basic salary counts toward gratuity, so where the column holding basic pay has another title — some systems call it Wage — choose A new basic salary (counts toward gratuity) for it. If none of someone's pay counts toward gratuity, the preview warns No basic salary for gratuity: nothing would accrue for them. Pay takes effect from the joining date for someone new, and from The day Accmerio takes over payroll for someone already in Accmerio, closing the line it replaces.
Gratuity, unpaid leave and loans
End-of-service gratuity is recorded as the balance on The day Accmerio takes over payroll, without posting: the provision came across with the books. The preview shows Accmerio's own Article 51 figure beside the file's for each person. Where they differ, the first gratuity accrual in Accmerio moves the balance to Accmerio's figure — in the open, on that run — and Before it goes in asks you to confirm you understand that. The preview also compares the total with 2310 End-of-Service Benefits Provision; if the books disagree, record the difference as an opening balance.
Unpaid leave taken so far is kept on the employee and taken out of their service for gratuity.
Loans and advances become Amounts owed, taken from pay run by run. Two questions come first: the account that holds what employees owe (each instalment taken is credited there), and whether they agreed in writing to the deductions — without that agreement the amount is recorded but nothing is taken, as the law requires.
What they were paid before
A payroll register or a WPS file becomes each person's Pay before Accmerio: a record of each month, shown on the employee. It never posts, never takes an instalment of what they owe, never appears in a WPS file and is never counted by a pay run. A month Accmerio has already run for the person is refused, and so is a month already brought in, so a file imported twice adds nothing.