# WPS Payroll Software for UAE Small Businesses: What to Check (2026) > What a SIF file actually contains, the four ways WPS files get rejected, and how to test any payroll software properly before you trust it with the salary run. Source: https://officehr.ae/blog/wps-payroll-software-uae Published by OfficeHR (https://officehr.ae). Author: The OfficeHR team. Buyer guides · November 2026 · 7 min read Topics: wps payroll software, sif file format, wps payroll software uae, wps small business uae Every HR platform sold in this country says it is WPS compliant. Almost none will let you check before you buy. That phrase on a feature list tells you the vendor has built something. It does not tell you whether the file it produces will clear your bank on the 28th with thirty two employees on it, one of whom changed IBAN last month and one of whom was on unpaid leave for eleven days. Those are different claims, and only one of them matters. This page covers what a SIF file actually is, the specific ways it gets rejected, how to test any payroll software in about twenty minutes, and how OfficeHR handles it. ## What a SIF file actually is The Salary Information File is the file that carries your payroll to your WPS agent bank and into MOHRE's monitoring system. It is a comma separated text file with no header row, and its structure is simple enough to explain in a paragraph. The first line is the **SCR**, the Salary Control Record, which works like a cover page. It carries your 13 digit MOHRE employer ID, your bank's 9 digit routing code, the file creation date and time, the salary month, how many employee rows follow, the total salary amount and the currency. Every line after that is an **EDR**, an Employee Detail Record, one per employee. Each carries the employee's 14 digit labour card number, their bank's 9 digit routing code, their 23 character IBAN beginning with AE, the pay period start and end, the number of days in the period, and the fixed and variable salary components. The file name is part of the format too: the 13 digit employer ID, then the creation date as YYMMDD, then the time as hhmmss, with a .sif extension. If the date and time in the name do not match the SCR, the file is rejected. And the rule that catches people out: the SCR total has to equal the sum of every fixed and variable amount across all the EDR rows exactly. A difference of AED 0.01 is enough to fail. That is the whole thing. It is not complicated. It is just completely unforgiving, which is why doing it by hand in a spreadsheet goes wrong so reliably. ## The four ways WPS files get rejected **Format and structure.** A malformed field, a record count that does not match the rows, a total that does not reconcile. The classic trigger is hand reformatting a spreadsheet export into the bank's column order and picking up a trailing comma, a currency symbol in a numeric field or the wrong decimal separator. The bank can reject the entire file rather than the one bad row. **Wage basis mismatches.** The file is internally perfect but the salary figures disagree with what is registered on the employee's MOHRE contract, usually because a raise or allowance was applied in payroll and never reflected in the registered contract. **Timing.** Preparing the file only after month end close leaves no room to fix a rejection and resubmit. **Bank side validation.** A labour card number not matching MOHRE records, an invalid or closed IBAN, the same employee appearing twice in one file, or an establishment ID that does not match the bank's WPS registration. And two that no software can prevent: an employee giving you the wrong IBAN, and the company account not being funded for the batch total on payment day. ## A note on deadlines We are not going to state a submission deadline with confidence, because public guidance on the exact cut off and the grace period has not been consistent. Confirm your own deadline with your WPS agent bank and with MOHRE directly rather than taking any software vendor's word for it, ours included. If anything in this area has changed recently, your bank will know before any blog does. ## The twenty minute test that settles it Do this with every vendor on your shortlist, during the trial, before you sign anything. 1. Take the SIF file you actually submitted last month and had accepted. 2. Set up the same employees in the system you are evaluating, with the same salaries. 3. Generate that same month. 4. Open both files side by side. 5. Compare the SCR line, then every EDR line: labour card numbers, routing codes, IBANs, pay period dates, days in period, fixed and variable amounts, and the total. If the two files match, you are looking at software that works. Our free [WPS file checker](https://officehr.ae/tools/wps-file-checker) validates a file's layout and totals, and compares two files field by field, in your browser. If a vendor will not let you run this test during evaluation, treat that as the answer to your question. One more thing to try while you are there. Put in an employee who joined mid month, one on unpaid leave for part of the period, and one whose salary changed partway through. Those three cases are where payroll systems quietly diverge, and they are the ones your real company will contain. ## What to look for in WPS payroll software - It generates the SIF from an approved pay run rather than from an export you reformat yourself. - It checks the file before you send it, and tells you which employee is missing a labour card, IBAN or bank routing code. - It names the file correctly and keeps the date and time consistent with the SCR. - It shows its working on gratuity and final settlements. - It lets you export your data in a readable format. ## How OfficeHR handles it AED 250 a month for up to fifteen employees, then AED 9 per extra employee, billed yearly, with quarterly and monthly also available. Published at every size, 30 day free trial. Core HR, leave and attendance, payslips, the WPS file, hiring and performance come in one subscription. The SIF file is generated from an approved pay run rather than assembled from an export, in the layout described above, and checked against the same rules as the free checker before it is saved. Before you mark a run paid, OfficeHR tells you which employees would be left out of the file and why, such as a missing labour card number, an IBAN that fails its check digits or a missing bank routing code. That removes the reformatting step that causes the most common class of rejection. Gratuity is calculated per Decree Law 33 of 2021 with the working shown, and you can try the rule on our [gratuity calculator](https://officehr.ae/tools/gratuity-calculator). ![What OfficeHR costs by team size, up to 100 people](https://officehr.ae/images/officehr-price-by-headcount.svg) We recommend you run the same test on us as on anyone else, with a file your bank has already accepted, and check your first live month with your bank. ## Common questions **What is a SIF file in the UAE?** It is the Salary Information File, a comma separated text file submitted to your WPS agent bank each month. It contains one SCR header line with your employer details and totals, then one EDR line per employee with their labour card number, IBAN, pay period and salary components. **Why was my WPS file rejected?** Most rejections fall into four groups: format and structure problems, salary figures that disagree with the employee's registered MOHRE contract, timing, and bank side validation failures such as an invalid IBAN or a labour card number that does not match MOHRE records. **Can I generate a SIF file in Excel?** You can, and plenty of companies do. The risk is the reformatting step, where a trailing comma or a stray currency symbol fails the whole file, and where the SCR total has to reconcile to the cent against every row. **Does WPS compliant mean the file will definitely be accepted?** No. It means the vendor has built SIF generation. Whether the output matches your specific bank's expectations with your specific employee data is a separate question, which is why the comparison test above is worth twenty minutes. **Does HR software file anything with MOHRE for me?** No. It produces the file you or your bank submit. Emiratisation, ILOE and similar filings are separate obligations and are not handled by a standard HR subscription, including ours. ## Keep reading - [What HR Software Actually Costs in the UAE (2026)](https://officehr.ae/blog/hr-software-pricing-uae) - [How to Switch HR Software Without Losing a Month](https://officehr.ae/blog/switch-hr-software-without-losing-a-month) - [Free WPS SIF file checker](https://officehr.ae/tools/wps-file-checker) - [Free UAE gratuity calculator](https://officehr.ae/tools/gratuity-calculator) - [Free UAE salary calculator, gross to net](https://officehr.ae/tools/salary-calculator) - [OfficeHR pricing, published at every size](https://officehr.ae/pricing) - [Start a free 30 day trial, no card needed](https://officehr.ae/signup) --- **Want a second pair of eyes first?** Email three of your employment contracts, with employee names and ID numbers removed, to hello@officehr.ae and we will send back a short read on what they say against the Labour Law's default positions. Free, no call attached. *Last checked November 2026. This article is general guidance and not legal advice. WPS rules, deadlines and penalties change, so confirm your obligations with your WPS agent bank and with MOHRE.* --- **Try OfficeHR free for 30 days, no card needed:** https://officehr.ae/signup. Prefer a walkthrough? [Book a demo](https://cal.com/officehr/30min).