Some of our clients may be using Workforce Management Systems we’re not yet integrated with. If this is the case for you, the Portal Upload function makes it easy for you to offer all your eligible employees access to Orka Pay. By doing an upload every week with a simple CSV sheet, you can add your employees’ weekly earnings and their Orka Pay apps will automatically update and give them access to 50% of those funds.
Here’s how you can do a Portal Upload on Orka Pay:
Activating employee accounts
Log into the Orka Pay Portal using your email, password and two-factor authentication connected to your phone. Navigate to the left-hand side menu and select “Upload CSV”.
Upload details
The first step of a Portal Upload on Orka Pay is to upload your employee information to activate them as users on Orka Pay. To do this, download the CSV template we provide through the Orka Pay portal and input the following information:
- Employees’ first name
- Last name
- Mobile number
- Date of birth, in the correct format
- Their national insurance number, which should be nine characters and a mix of numbers and letters
Input this information into the file and take care not to make changes to the column order, the phrasing of the headers, the format of the dates & mobile numbers or the file name.
Thereafter, we recommend you double-check the data to ensure it’s all correct before uploading it to the Orka Pay Portal.
Upload CSV file
When you’re done, save the CSV file and upload it on the portal. If the upload is successful, the field will turn green and show a green tick box.
This action will ensure that everyone in the file will have an Orka Pay account created and will get an email offering to claim their account.
Getting errors? The most common mistakes here include incorrectly formatted data or trying to upload a different file format. Please double-check your data and your file and if you’re still having issues, get in touch.
Adding earnings
Next up is to add employee’s earnings!
To do this, download the second CSV file on the page and fill in information about how much your employees have earned.
A few things that are really important to remember at this stage:
Pay date
The first column in the CSV file is titled “Pay date”. It’s important to understand how to fill this in correctly. Here, we are not referring to the day your staff get paid, but the end of the pay cycle. Or, pay cycle cut-off date, if this falls prior to the end of the pay cycle.
Orka Pay balance resets at midnight on the pay cycle end date (or pay cycle cut-off date if prior to the end of the pay cycle). Our net deductions report is issued at this point. This means there is a gap between one pay cycle cutting off and the beginning of the next one.
For a very short period, Orka Pay balances remain at zero.
Balance that will become available
The second thing to take note of, when you upload the amount earned, 50% of this becomes available to the employee on Orka Pay, minus the fee for withdrawals.
Earnings are cumulative
The last thing to take note of is that uploading gross earnings is cumulative and will not reset from week to week. If you do one upload stating an employee has earned £200 so far this month and then another upload the day after stating the employee has earned another £200, the system will register their gross earnings as £400 in total. It’s key to make sure that you’re uploading only what they’ve earned in the previous week.
Upload the second file
Once you’ve filled out this CSV file, upload it to the portal.
We’ll ask you to check a declaration box to agree that Orka Pay cannot accept any liability, financial or otherwise, for any data submitted incorrectly,
Once this box is ticked, you can upload your document and make funds available to your employees.
If you should have issues or questions along the way. Remember, you can always reach out to the team at Orka Pay to get support and help!
If you can, pick up overtime shifts to cover large withdrawals
“If you’re going to use Orka Pay, try to put in some overtime to cover what you’re using. Planning and budgeting for this is key to keeping in control of your money.”
– Roz, Head of HR at Whistlepunks
Use it as a safety net
“Try not to use it on the regular. It’s there as a safety net, and that’s how I try and look at it. It’s not something you should just go and get money when you want it because it’s coming out of your wages as the end of the month, so use it in emergencies only.”
Vicky, Instructor at Whistlepunks
Limit usage
“Don’t overuse it, and keep in mind that anything you withdraw will come out of your wages at the end of the month. Try to use it only for essential things and bills.”
– Jamie, Sous Chef at Little Ships Restaurant
Use it to track your earnings
“The app is user-friendly. You’ll see how much money has been paid into your account and calculate exactly how much withdrawal fees will cost you.”
– Martin, Instructor at Whistlepunks
Monitor usage
“Paying attention to the frequency of use, how often you withdraw and reaching out if you have further trouble with money is important.”
– Tim, Operations Manager at Little Ships Restaurant
