ANTE User ManualMonthly Remittance Return (1601-C)
BIR Form 1601-C is the Monthly Remittance Return of Income Taxes Withheld on Compensation. This page aggregates that month's posted payroll into the return's figures and fills a BIR-format PDF you can preview and print before filing. Use it every month, once that month's payroll cutoffs are posted, and before the BIR filing deadline.
Accessing the Monthly Remittance Return
- Click HR in the sidebar
- Open Government & Compliance
- Select Monthly Remittance (1601-C)
The breadcrumb at the top of the page reads HR › Government & Compliance › Monthly Remittance (1601-C).
The menu item shows for anyone who can open the Alphalist report: there is no separate access permission for the return, so an HR role that can see the Alphalist can also open this page.
Selecting the Period
Use the Period (Month/Year) picker to choose the remittance month. The page pulls every payroll cutoff posted within that month to build the return; if none is posted yet, the page shows an empty state asking you to process and post payroll first.
Filing Options
These fields fill the corresponding boxes on the printed form:
The PDF Preview
The filled BIR Form 1601-C previews inline below the filing options and updates automatically whenever you change the period or a filing option.
Negative amounts print with a minus sign, for example an Item 26 adjustment that refunds tax (such as a final-pay tax refund released in the month). A negative amount in Items 27, 31 and 36 means the withholding was over-remitted, not that tax is still due.
Statutory Remittance Files (SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG)
Besides the BIR return, you can generate each agency's monthly upload file from the same posted payroll. Click Remittance files in the page header to open the Statutory remittance files dialog for the selected month.
- Choose the agencyPick the Agency: SSS R-3 (contribution collection list), PhilHealth EPRS (employee upload) or Pag-IBIG MCRF (contribution remittance form). For SSS and Pag-IBIG you can also choose the File type: Contributions or Loan collection list (SSS loan collection list ML-2, or the Pag-IBIG short-term loan remittance form, STLRF).
- Check the previewThe dialog lists Employees in file with the Employee share, Employer share and Employer compensation (EC) totals, so you can reconcile them against the on-screen reports before you upload anything. PhilHealth EPRS takes each member's monthly basic salary and works out the premium itself, so its share totals are for reference only.
- Fix anyone left outEmployees who cannot be included are listed with the reason: member ID not recorded, member ID is not the right length, no contribution this month, or (for loan files and MP2 lines) loan application or MP2 account number not recorded. Correct their records, then generate the file again.
- DownloadClick Download file and upload it on the agency's portal.
The file needs your company's employer ID for that agency. If it is missing, the dialog says so — add it under Settings → Company, in the statutory employer ID fields. Each employee's SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG member numbers come from their employee record.
The files also carry the status information each agency expects — for example new hires, separated employees and employees with no earnings that month — worked out from the contract, separation and payroll records. Pag-IBIG MP2 savings are written as extra lines keyed by the MP2 account number.
The agencies do not publish every file layout in full. Treat the SSS R-3 and loan files as ready-to-key data sheets, and confirm the first file you submit with each agency.
Loans and MP2 come from deduction types tagged with a Government remittance line — see Deduction Plans.
Finalizing the Filing
Once the month's figures are correct, click Finalize filing in the page header to freeze that month's 1601-C aggregate as the official, unchangeable record of what was submitted to BIR. Unlike the annual Alphalist, finalizing here is payload-only — no PDF is stored; the return stays reproducible from the frozen figures alone, filled through the same PDF template shown in the preview above.
Finalizing needs a separate permission from viewing the return — if the button doesn't appear, ask an administrator to grant it. Finalize refuses, and explains why, in two situations:
- The return is empty — there is no posted payroll for the month yet.
- An active filing already exists for the month and you have not chosen to amend it — see Amending a Filing below.
The Finalize filing dialog previews exactly what will be frozen — the employee count and the headline totals (Total Compensation, Taxable Compensation, Taxes Withheld, Taxes Withheld for Remittance). Add an optional note, then click Finalize.
The Filed Banner and As-Filed View
Once a month has been finalized, a banner appears reading Filed on [date] by [name], with any note attached at finalize time. From the banner you can click History to open the filing history (see Amending a Filing below) and toggle View as filed / View live data to switch the PDF preview between the frozen aggregate and the current live figures.
A Live data differs from the filed version badge appears on the banner whenever the month's live totals no longer match what was filed — expected after a later correction to a posted payroll cutoff, and it does not change the filed record itself. Switching to View as filed shows an As filed chip above the preview and fills the same PDF template from the frozen figures instead of the live ones.
Amending a Filing
Filed months are append-only — a finalized filing is never overwritten or deleted. To correct a filed month (for example, after a payroll correction changes the figures), click Finalize filing again for the same month. Because an active filing already exists, the dialog opens directly in Amend filing mode and requires a non-empty Amend reason before you can submit. Finalizing again supersedes the previous filing — it does not replace or delete it.
Click History on the banner to see the full chain for a month: every version ever finalized, newest first, each marked Current or Superseded, who finalized it and when, the amend reason on a superseded entry, and a SHA-256 evidence hash of the exact frozen payload. This is the same append-only pattern the Alphalist Report uses — what was submitted must stay reproducible even after later payroll corrections.
How the Figures Are Built
The return's compensation and withholding figures are aggregated from every payroll cutoff posted within the selected month:
- Total compensation, de minimis benefits, and SSS / PhilHealth / Pag-IBIG employee-share contributions, summed across the month's posted cutoffs
- Minimum wage earner pay — employees with an active, signed Minimum Wage Earner declaration for the year are reported as MWE, and their statutory minimum wage and holiday/overtime/night differential pay are reported separately from the taxable total. These components are genuinely exempt from withholding as of the payroll run that applied the declaration — see How the Exemption Applies at Payroll — so this return's Total taxes withheld already reflects it. A cutoff posted before a mid-year declaration was signed is resolved the same way the Alphalist Report resolves it, so the monthly return and the annual filing always agree on what is exempt. No declaration means an employee is not counted as MWE here, even if their withheld tax happens to be zero.
- Total taxes withheld — the month's actual withholding, before the adjustment below, and excluding any MWE catch-up refund booked on a payslip this month (that refund moves to Item 26 instead)
13th month pay is intentionally excluded — it is reported separately, not monthly.
A cutoff counts in one month only: the month its end date falls in. A cutoff such as 26 Jun – 10 Jul is therefore reported in July, never in both June and July. The SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG employee-share lines are summed from the same government payment records the remittance files use, so the return and the files agree to the centavo. A month that was already finalized is not affected — its as-filed figures stay frozen.
Adjustment from Previous Months (Item 26)
Item 26 nets in two kinds of prior-period adjustment for the selected month:
- A Separation Pay final pay package Released within the selected month: an annualization refund paid through the package lowers the amount due, and a tax deficiency collected through the package raises it.
- A mid-year MWE declaration's correction for earlier cutoffs, booked as a "Tax Refund (Minimum Wage Exemption Correction)" line on any employee's payslip posted within the month, lowers the amount due. It is moved out of Total taxes withheld and into Item 26 — the line item for an adjustment of prior months' withholding — rather than netted invisibly into the withheld total. Net remittance is unchanged; only the presentation splits.
The final-pay adjustment is attributed by release month — the return for the month HR actually released the package. That is different from the Alphalist Breakdown, which attributes the same settlement to the employee's separation year instead. A package released the month after separation can therefore affect a different 1601-C than the alphalist year it settles. The MWE catch-up adjustment carries no such split — it is simply attributed to whichever month the correcting payslip posted in.
If a released final pay package is later voided after the month's 1601-C has already been filed, voiding the package does not by itself correct the filed return — that return needs to be amended.
Related Topics
- Separation Pay — releasing a final pay package is what can populate this return's Item 26
- Alphalist Report and Alphalist Breakdown — the annual counterpart, which attributes a final pay settlement to the separation year instead of the release month, and shares the same finalize / amend / as-filed pattern documented there
- Minimum Wage Compliance — where MWE declarations are signed; a signed declaration is what this return's minimum wage earner pay figures are now based on
How It Connects
Set up first
- Deductions — tagging a deduction as a government remittance line decides which remittance file and return figure it lands in.
- Minimum Wage Compliance — a signed Minimum Wage Earner declaration decides who is reported as MWE on this return.
Gets its data from
- Payroll Center — every payroll cutoff posted in the month is aggregated into the return.
- Separation Pay — a released final pay package can populate the adjustment from previous months (Item 26).
Feeds into
- Government Contribution Reports — the same posted payroll produces the SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG and tax withholding reports, so the return and the remittance files agree.
- Alphalist Report — the annual 1604-C filing consolidates the same withholding, using the same finalize and as-filed pattern.