Where to upload/ sign Form 16?

 

 

What is Form 16?

Form 16 is an Income Tax certificate issued by the employer that has details about how much tax was deducted and when was it submitted to the IT (Income tax) department. It is issued as proof of tax deducted and deposited. One can also consider Form 16 as a salary TDS certificate. It is also considered as a source of proof of Income Tax returns filed by an employee. 

Below is the path from where you can upload Form 16-

Go to the Payroll (1) section of the Keka Portal and click on Payroll Admin (2). Then go to the Form 16 (3) tab and click on Upload or Sign Form 16 (4). 

Once you click on Upload or Sign Form 16, you'll be getting a pop-up on the screen as shown below -

Click on 'Proceed to Upload' and you'll be directed to the page from where you can upload Form 16 files that are downloaded from the TRACES. 

Upload a ZIP file type by clicking on Click to Upload which consists of the employee's form 16 which is present under the legal entity. Save the upload and thus Form 16 will be uploaded for the respective employees.

You can upload and send the Form 16 to your employees in two ways:

1. Upload signed Part A and Part B files directly into Keka 
2. Use Document Signer App to merge and sign unsigned Part A and Part B files 

Upload signed Part A and Part B files 

To upload signed Part A and Part B files to Keka: 

Navigate to the Payroll (1) section and click on Payroll Admin (2). 

Go to the Form 16 tab, and click on Upload Form 16.

In the screen to upload files, upload signed Part A PDFs and signed Part B PDFs as two separate zip files in the respective sections on the screen.

 

Please note that the accepted file format is a ZIP file. You need to compress the Part A files into one zip file, and Part B files into another zip file to upload them here. 

Important: Employees' PAN is used to map files with the employees.

- The PDF files inside the zip file should have the employees' PAN number as the first 10 characters in their name.
- The PAN in the file name should match with the employees' PAN added in Keka.

Once the files are successfully uploaded, click on Save Uploaded Files to save the files for all the employees. 

You can also attach Annexure to Form 16 (Details of salary paid and allowances exempted) and Form 12BA (Details of perquisites and other fringe benefits) by clicking on the checkbox.

These files will be sent to the employees along with Part A and Part B files in the mail.

Uploading and saving the file against each employee might take a few minutes. Once the files are successfully saved, you can see the status here.

If there are errors in the file upload, you can view the reasons for the error by clicking on the employee count for whom files have not been uploaded or by clicking on "To view the reasons for failure, click here".

 

This will show you the list of errors for each employee. You can resolve the errors and upload the files again.

On re-uploading files, if files are uploaded for an employee for whom files were already previously uploaded, then the new file will replace the older file.

Use Document Signer App: Merge and sign unsigned Part A and Part B files 

To merge the Part A and Part B files and sign them digitally, you can use the document signer app. To do this, follow the steps below:

Go to Document Signer App and login in using your credentials. 

Only the global admin can log into the Document Signer app using his/her Keka credentials.

Once you're logged in, click on Generate Form 16.

If you have enabled the setting to sign Form 16 digitally, then on clicking Generate Form 16, you will be prompted to select the digital signature that needs to be attached to the uploaded files. Select the correct digital signature and click on OK.

It is recommended to upload unsigned files in Document Signer app.
If signed files are uploaded, then upon merging the files, the existing signature gets invalidated and the merged files need to be re-signed within the Document Signer app.

It is recommended to enable the setting 'Sign Form 16 documents digitally' in the settings tab to sign the merged Part A and Part B files.

Once the digital signature is selected, in the next step upload the Form 16 Part A ZIP file. Please ensure the ZIP file contains the Part A PDFs with employee's PAN as the first 10 characters. The files should not be inside a folder in the ZIP file.

After uploading the files successfully, click on Next.

Upload the Form 16 Part B ZIP file. Similar to Part A, the ZIP file should contains the Part B PDFs with employee's PAN as the first 10 characters. The files should not be inside a folder in the ZIP file.

It is recommended to enable the setting "Upload Part B of Form 16 separately instead of a full set" as you will get the option to upload the Part B files only if the setting is enabled.

For FORM 16 to be considered a full set, you need to upload both Part A and Part B files.

Once the Part B files are uploaded successfully, click on Generate to merge the Part A and Part B files and digitally sign them.

Once the files are successfully merged and signed, the files are automatically uploaded to your Keka portal. You do not need to manually upload these again in the Keka portal using upload option.

To configure Form 16 settings mentioned above, add form 12BA and salary Annexure with the uploaded files or to enable password protection for Form 16, navigate to the Settings tab.

We hope this article helped you understand how to download Form 16 files, upload them to Keka, and send them directly to your employees. For any further questions, don't hesitate to contact our product experts!