Your pay data report, accepted by the state portal on the first upload.
For HR and payroll teams at employers with 100 or more employees in California or Illinois. Drop the CSV or Excel you built from the state's template. PayDataCheck checks every cell against the template's own rules, fixes the mistakes the portal rejects, and lists what's left for you to decide.
- Runs in your browser: salaries never leave your computer
- No sign-up, no upload
- Built on the official California and Illinois templates
- Free to check
| Establishment | ZIP | Race/Sex | Exempt | Mean rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acme Water, IncAcme Water - Inc | 211002110 | C20 | exemptExempt | $115.00115.00 |
| Acme Water - Inc | 02110 | B80 | Exempt | 92.50 |
| Acme Water - Inc | 02110 | C60 | full timeFull-time | 55.00 |
Illustrative. Rows and names are not real employers.
Three deadlines. The same mistakes get a file rejected in all of them.
Wrong codes, commas inside cells, totals that don't add up. They are the cheapest part of the report to get right, and the reason most uploads bounce.
- Illinois
The Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) rejects any Equal Pay Registration Certificate (EPRC) employee CSV that still says "prefers not to identify" for sex or race.
— days away - California
Pay data reports are due to the California Civil Rights Department (CRD). Not filing costs $100 per employee, $200 for a repeat.
— days away - Colorado
Employers with 100+ workers add EEO-1 data to their periodic report with the Secretary of State.
— days away
Drop your file. Get one the portal accepts.
Works with California's official Payroll Employee Report template (Excel or CSV), Illinois' EPRC employee import CSV, and the exports your payroll system or consultant handed you. Nothing is uploaded: the check runs on this page.
| Type | Where | Column | What and why |
|---|
PayDataCheck checks formatting and consistency against the published templates. It can't know whether your numbers are true. Not legal advice; not affiliated with the California Civil Rights Department, the Illinois Department of Labor or the Colorado Secretary of State.
What it catches and fixes
Every rule comes from the data validations inside California's 2025 Excel template, CRD's FAQ on file upload errors, and the Illinois EPRC template and FAQ. "Fixed" means we rewrite it for you. "Flagged" means you decide.
California · Pay Data Report (Civil Rights Department)
Excel drops the leading zero from ZIP 02110, turns NAICS into 221310.0 and leaves blank rows of commas. Restored and removed.
CRD's FAQ: data must not contain commas. "Acme Water Works, Inc" breaks the upload. Rewritten the way CRD's own example file does it.
Job Category 1–10, the 24 Race/Ethnicity/Sex codes, Pay Band 1–12, Exempt / Non-exempt, Full-time / Part-time / Intermittent, Yes / No. Capitalization and spacing fixed for you; codes that don't exist are flagged with the row number.
Whole numbers for headcounts and hours, two-decimal rates, no dollar signs or thousands separators.
Employee groups must add up to the establishment total. Not remote + remote in CA + remote outside CA must equal the group count. One headquarters only. No duplicate groups.
The portal rejects files built on last year's template. The old 22-column layout is recognized before you upload.
Illinois · Equal Pay Registration Certificate employee CSV (Department of Labor)
Rejected for sex and race from January 1, 2027. Every such cell is listed so you can fill it from employment records.
"White" becomes "White alone", "Craft Workers" becomes the full classification, "Cook County" becomes "Cook". Excel date serials become MM/DD/YYYY, wages round to the nearest hundred, hours to the nearest hour.
Illinois wants the last four digits of the Social Security number only. Full numbers are cut down on your computer, before the file goes anywhere.
How it works
Three steps, no account. You still file in the state portal; this makes sure the file you upload is right.
Build your report on the current template
Download this year's template from the state (California's Payroll Employee Report or Illinois' EPRC employee CSV) and fill it from payroll, or export it from your HR system.
Drop it here
The file is read on this page. Every cell is checked against the template rules, the safe problems are fixed, and the ones that need a human are listed.
Upload the fixed file
Download the corrected CSV and upload it in the portal. Formatting errors gone; cross-check errors caught before the state sees them.
The portal is free. Rejections aren't.
Every rejected upload is another afternoon in the spreadsheet, and every missed deadline is a $100-per-employee penalty in California.
| PayDataCheck | Pay-equity software or a consultant | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free to check · $49 once per year to download | $1,500 to $10,000+ per year | Hours, every rejection |
| Your employee data | Stays in your browser | Uploaded to their servers | Stays with you |
| Rules checked | Every column, code list and cross-total in the template | Theirs, plus analytics you may not need | Whatever you remember |
| Illinois and Colorado | Same tool | Usually a separate module | Separate spreadsheet |
| Who files | You, in the state portal | Sometimes they do | You |
One price. The whole reporting year.
Checking is free, every time, with every error shown. Pay once when you want to download the fixed file for a report bigger than 25 rows.
Free
- Unlimited checks, every issue shown
- Fixed file download up to 25 rows
- California and Illinois
Pro
- Unlimited rows and establishments
- Fixed CSV, ready for the portal
- Issue report CSV for your records
- Rule updates when CRD posts the 2027 template
- Email support within one business day
Firm
- Everything in Pro
- Unlimited client files
- Invoice with your firm's details
- Priority rule updates and a heads-up when a template changes
Secure checkout by Stripe. Pro stays on the browser you buy it from; email support to move it to another computer. 14-day refund if the file still gets rejected for a formatting reason we should have caught.
Questions employers ask
Anything else: support@paydatacheck.fyi, answered within one business day.
Does my employee data get uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read by JavaScript running on this page. There is no upload endpoint for files; you can disconnect from the internet after the page loads and it still works. The only network request is the Stripe checkout if you buy Pro.
Which California template does it check against?
The Reporting Year 2025 Payroll Employee Report template that the Civil Rights Department (CRD) posted on February 2, 2026: 25 columns, Job Category codes 1–10, the 24 Race/Ethnicity/Sex codes (A10 to D70), Pay Bands 1–12 based on W-2 Box 5, plus Exemption Status, Employment Type and Weeks Worked. When CRD posts the Reporting Year 2026 template in February 2027, we update the rules the same week.
What does the CRD portal actually reject?
Per CRD's FAQ: files built on a prior year's template, CSV data that contains commas, missing required fields, invalid codes, and totals that don't match between the portal entries and the uploaded file. Those are exactly the checks here, plus consistency checks across rows of the same establishment.
Do you handle the Labor Contractor Employee Report?
Not yet. The Payroll Employee Report is covered today. The Labor Contractor report uses a near-identical column set; email us if you need it and we'll prioritize it.
Illinois: what changed for 2027?
The Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) revised its Equal Pay Registration Certificate (EPRC) employee CSV template in 2026 and removed "prefers not to identify" for sex and race. As of January 1, 2027, submissions that still use it are rejected. The checker flags every such cell and matches your race, gender, classification and county wording to IDOL's exact strings.
Colorado?
HB 26-1207 requires employers with 100 or more employees to include EEO-1 demographic data in their periodic report to the Secretary of State starting July 1, 2027. The state hasn't published a file format yet. Pro customers get the Colorado check as soon as there's a spec. Details.
Is this legal or compliance advice?
No. It's a formatting and consistency check against published templates. Whether an employee belongs in a given job category or pay band is your determination. Cedano Labs LLC is not affiliated with CRD, IDOL or any state agency.