Hotlines and programs

Every year, the BIR requires that all companies submit their Alphabetical list (alphalist) of employees listing all their salaries and benefits received from the company throughout the year. There is a further qualification that those with ten (10) employees and above are required to submit the alphalist in diskette form, i.e. in electronic format. This electronic format will be generated from the BIR’s program where you can input the details needed and generate the needed file. They also have a separate program to validate this data.
The program came out late this year, they had to remake some of the program to accommodate the new laws and regulations involving the compensation of employees. They were only able to release the program around a week before the extended deadline. But, there had been problems. We were calling the BIR hotline but they could not help us. They directed us to another number which was busy all the time. This made us frantic because being late with the BIR means penalties. They only had one number for, let’s say, thousands of companies will call and ask for help. Just goes to show that tech support, an efficient one at that, is vital.