2 · Register & deductions takes a second kind of file: one row per employee per deduction or tax, with the wages each tax was worked out on. Workday's delivered Deduction Register drops in as it comes, though it has no taxable wages, so the tax checks sit out. From any other system, give the columns the names below.
The scan and its totals are free and need no account. Employee names, the detail on each flag, the three Pro checks and the Excel workbook need Pro; without it, a Pro check that finds something shows as a count. The file is read in your browser and never uploaded.
The blank template has the thirteen column names. The example is one biweekly pay date for ten invented people at two companies, with six problems planted: Social Security taken at 5.2%, a person with no Medicare line, a child support order skipped with $150.00 rolled to arrears, a $250.00 parking charge where everyone else pays $25.00, the same dental line entered twice, and a dental refund. It comes back with 1 critical finding, 2 warnings and 3 review items.
It reads the headers, whichever card you drop the file on. A file counts as a deduction export when it has all three of these:
Miss one and the file is read as a pay register, and you'll see the register audit's missing-column warning instead. This path has no column-mapping screen, so the names have to be right in the file. The strip above the results says deduction & tax export when it worked.
Employee ID
Worker
Company
Organization
Period
Pay Date
Deduction
Deduction Code
Pay Component Group
Taxable Earnings
Payroll Result
Current Period Result
Current Period Arrears
Outstanding Arrears Balance
| Column | Needed? | What goes in it | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee ID | This or Worker | Groups each person's lines. When it's blank the Worker name is used. | 204417 |
| Worker | This or Employee ID | The name. An ID in brackets at the end, like Anya Brightwell (204417), is dropped for display. | Anya Brightwell |
| Company | Optional | Fills the By Company tab. | Larkspur Mills East |
| Organization | Optional | The cost center. A leading “Cost Center:” is dropped. When the cell stacks several lines, as Workday's Organizations does with Cost Center and Location, only the Cost Center line is used. Fills By Cost Center. | Cost Center: 10-100 Assembly |
| Period | For two checks | The pay period. Repeat lines are counted within it, and its first date orders periods for the arrears trend. | 08/23/2026 - 09/05/2026 |
| Pay Date | Optional | MM/DD/YYYY or an Excel date. The first one names the workbook. With no Pay Date column, the date inside a Workday Payroll Result is used. | 09/11/2026 |
| Deduction | Required | The deduction or tax name. | Social Security (OASDI) |
| Deduction Code | Recommended | Your code. Repeats and outliers are grouped by it. Without it, anyone with more than one line in a period is flagged as a repeat. | OASDI |
| Pay Component Group | Optional | The category. Used only to sort a line whose name and code don't. | Taxes |
| Taxable Earnings | For the tax checks | The wages this line was worked out on. Without it, the rate checks and the missing-FICA check can't run. | 2224.60 |
| Payroll Result | Optional | Workday's pay result. The pay date and the status are read from it, and a status other than Complete is flagged. | Anya Brightwell (204417): 09/11/2026 (Regular) - Complete |
| Current Period Result | Required | The amount taken this period. A row with no number here is skipped. Period Result also works. | 137.93 |
| Current Period Arrears | For arrears checks | What went unpaid this period and rolled to arrears. | 150.00 |
| Outstanding Arrears Balance | For arrears checks | The running arrears balance. | 450.00 |
Names are matched ignoring case, and a column that starts with the name counts too: Taxable Earnings and Taxable Wages both fill Taxable, and Pay Component Groups fills Pay Component Group. When two columns start with the same name, the first one wins.
Every line goes into one bucket, found by keywords in its Deduction and Deduction Code. The buckets are tried in this order and the first match wins. The first six are the taxes. Only when the name and code match nothing are the Pay Component Group lines tried, leaving out the ones that say how a deduction is taxed rather than what it is: anything ending in Taxable Reduction (Federal, FICA, SUI and the rest), Withholding, Withholding Order, and Pre Tax or Post Tax Deductions. Workday lists those on nearly every pre-tax deduction.
Social Security (OASDI)
Medicare
Federal withholding
Local withholding
State withholding
SUI / SDI / paid leave
Garnishments
Retirement
Benefits
Other
| Bucket | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Social Security (OASDI) | OASDI or Social Security |
| Medicare | Medicare |
| Federal withholding | Federal followed by Withholding or Income; FITW; FWT |
| Local withholding | Local, City, County or School District, together with Withhold or Tax |
| State withholding | State followed by Withholding or Income; SITW; SWT |
| SUI / SDI / paid leave | SUI, SDI, Disability, Unemployment, FLI, PFML, Paid Family or Medical Leave, Workforce |
| Garnishments | Garnish, Levy, Child Support, Support Order, Bankruptcy |
| Retirement | 401, 403, 457, Roth, Retirement, Pension |
| Benefits | Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA, FSA, Life, Insurance, Benefit |
| Other | Anything else |
Because the SUI/SDI keywords come before Benefits, a voluntary long-term disability plan lands in SUI / SDI / paid leave if its name contains Disability. The bucket decides which lines get the rate checks, which count as taxes for the missing-FICA check, and which the outlier check leaves out.
OASDI rate off 6.2%
Medicare rate off 1.45%/2.35%
No Social Security (OASDI) or Medicare withheld
Deduction not taken
Arrears increased
Repeated deduction line
Negative deduction
Arrears growing
Payroll result not complete (Pro)
Employee and employer shares don't pair (Pro)
Large arrears balance (Pro)
Amount outlier for code
| Check | What it flags | Severity |
|---|---|---|
| OASDI rate off 6.2% | A Social Security line more than 2¢, or 0.05% of its taxable wages if that's larger, away from 6.2% of its own Taxable Earnings. | Critical |
| Medicare rate off 1.45%/2.35% | A Medicare line that fits neither 1.45% nor 2.35% (1.45% plus the extra 0.9%) of its taxable wages, with the same tolerance. A line that's part one rate and part the other, as in the check where someone crosses $200,000, will flag too. | Critical |
| No Social Security (OASDI) or Medicare withheld | A person with taxable wages on any tax line but no Social Security line, no Medicare line, or neither. It checks that the line exists, not its amount. The flag names whichever is missing. | Warning |
| Deduction not taken | Nothing taken this period while Current Period Arrears shows an amount. | Warning |
| Arrears increased | Something taken, but an amount still rolled to Current Period Arrears: under-collected. | Warning |
| Repeated deduction line | The same code more than once for one person in one period. Multi-state lines can be fine; identical amounts usually aren't. The check doesn't compare the amounts, so look. | Review |
| Negative deduction | Any amount below zero, such as a refund or an adjustment. | Review |
| Arrears growing | Across two or more periods in the same file, a person's outstanding balance for a code ended higher than it started. | Review |
| Payroll result not complete (Pro) | A Payroll Result whose status isn't Complete, once per worker. Its amounts can still change. | Warning |
| Employee and employer shares don't pair (Pro) | A worker with only the employee side of a plan (Dental EE) or only the employer side (Dental ER), in a plan where someone else in the file has both. Sides are read from EE/ER or Employee/Employer in the name, or the Employer Paid Benefits group. Plans with no employer share anywhere are left alone. | Warning |
| Large arrears balance (Pro) | An outstanding arrears balance over $1 that's more than 4 times what's scheduled each period (taken plus what rolled to arrears), or a balance with nothing scheduled. | Review |
| Amount outlier for code | In a code with at least 8 non-zero lines, an amount far above the median: more than double it when everyone pays the same, otherwise a modified z-score over 3.5. An amount two or more people share is read as a plan tier, like employee plus family, and isn't flagged. High side only, at most 3 per code. Taxes are left out because they scale with pay. | Review |
A missing Social Security or Medicare line can be correct. F-1 and J-1 students who are nonresident aliens and some public employees don't pay FICA, so read those warnings as a list to confirm. The arrears checks run only when the arrears columns are in the file.
On the page: Summary (workers, lines, total and tax withheld, deduction codes and the finding counts), Audit Flags (the first 250), Breakdown and Data (the first 250 lines). Breakdown is a pivot that starts as cost center, then deduction code, with the amount divided by taxable wages, which shows each tax's effective rate. You can change any of it.
With Pro, the Excel workbook is named like deductions-audit-09-11-2026.xlsx after the pay date. It has Summary, Audit Flags with every finding, By Deduction (per code: employees, lines, taxable, withheld and effective rate), By Company, By Cost Center, and Data with the arrears columns included.