Paid Family and Medical Leave account set-up and POA details

Email Banner - Employment Security Department - Washington State

If you file reports or make payments to the State of Washington on behalf of businesses with employees working in Washington, please continue reading for important information. You may unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of this email.


 

Paid Family and Medical Leave
reporting has begun

 

Reporting deadline extended to August 31

Overview timeline

As this is a new program and technology system, Employment Security extended the deadline for Q1 and Q2 reporting and payments from July 31 to August 31. We are still encouraging employers to begin the account creation process as early as possible to ensure you have enough time to set up your account, file and pay for both quarters before the August 31 deadline. 


Create an employer agent account

Image depicts the Create An Account screen

Employer agents will need to set up a Paid Family and Medical Leave employer agent account before reporting or remitting for clients. Please note, the first person to set up your account for your company will be the account administrator. No one else will be able to access the account until the administrator grants them access. For detailed instructions on setting up an account, please visit the employer agent section on our reporting page.


Wordmark of the Paid Family and Medical Leave logo

The legislatively-mandated implementation timeline for Paid Family and Medical Leave is very short, and in order to both meet our deadlines and deliver the best possible value to our customers, we’re developing the technology to support employer reports, payments and, eventually, benefit claims, in phases. This means that over time, we will be building and releasing additional features and functionality.


Important power of attorney information

PLEASE NOTE: Employer agents must either have a signed power of attorney (POA) or file via ICESA.

If you plan to report in the employer context for your clients and not via ICESA, you will need signed POAs.

We had intended to make filing in the employer context possible without a POA. Due to technical challenges, this functionality may not be available before the end of August. If you cannot file by ICESA, we recommend you download the POA form for your clients, get it signed and upload it using your employer agent Paid Leave account as soon as possible.

Please note: We must review the form before you can access your client's account. We are receiving a high volume of POA forms, so processing times may be delayed. We will waive penalties for late reporting if we are unable to process your POA in time.

If you file via ICESA you do not need a Paid Family and Medical Leave POA to report, amend reports or pay premiums on your client's behalf.

However, you will need a signed POA before our staff can provide you any information about your client’s account, reports or employee-level data. You will also need a POA to represent your client in audits or appeals.

 

With or without a POA on file, you may:

  • Bulk file for all of your clients in a single ICESA file, or report for individual clients with an ICESA file.
  • Amend your clients’ reports via ICESA
  • Bulk pay using ACH credit (to get the instructions for ACH credit payments, email our Care Team with "Request: Bulk Payment Instructions" in the subject line)

Paid Family and Medical Leave has different bulk filing specifications than other state agencies. We recommend that you test your file format before submitting quarterly reports.

If you have a POA on file with Paid Family and Medical Leave, you may:

  • Link to a client
  • File via CSV or manual entry
  • Pay for single employers via ACH debit, credit or debit card, or check/money order
  • File amendments to your manual, CSV or ICESA file
  • Get information from us about your clients’ accounts

High call volume banner 2