The government, through EPF regulations, aims to provide employees with an emergency fund which can cater to their retirement and other exigencies. EPF is managed by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO). EPF compliance entails regular filing of EPF returns. The due date to file EPF return is 15th of the subsequent month. The return filing can be made at the unified portal.
Following are step by step to process EPF return through online.
1.Log in to the unified portal with establishment id and password.
2. Navigate to the payments tab and select the ECR Return filing.
3. Select the wage month and file type (Regular ECR or Arrear) and download the ECR File.
4. Fill all the necessary wage details against each UAN.
5. Save the excel file in CSV (Comma Delimited) format.
6. Now open the saved file in notepad and remove the heading and commas in the file.
7. All the commas to be replaced with #~#.
8. Save the .txt file in the desired folder.
9. Go back to the unified portal and click on upload ECR.
10. Enter all basic details like wage month, salary disbursal date, contribution rate etc. and upload the ECR.
11. The system will generate an error file if there are any errors in the uploaded file or else the file will get uploaded.
12. Resolve the errors as shown in the error file and re-upload the same.
13. Once the file is successfully validated, a TRRN is generated, click on verify option.
14. The next step is to generate challan by clicking on ‘Prepare Challan’ option.
15. All the relevant details are already prefilled in the challan based on the ECR uploaded. Check and confirm all details and click on submit.
16. Once the challan is successfully created, a payment link is generated.
17. After the required payments are made, the return is successfully filed, and a confirmation of the payment made is provided by the EPFO.