DES
North Carolina Department of Commerce
Division of Employment Security

Business Services


Magnetic Media Reporting

General Information and Requirements

  • ESC accepts wage reporting data on magnetic reel tape, 3480/3490 cartridge tape, 3 1/2" diskette and CD's in the ESC, MMREF, and ICESA formats.
  • Form NCUI 101, Employer's Quarterly Tax and Wage Report must be submitted for each employer account number for which wage data is submitted along with a check or money order if payment is due. This form may be filed electronically and payment may be made electronically via EFT debit, credit card or e-check.
  • Magnetic media must be submitted by the end of the month following the completion of the calendar quarter in order to be considered timely. For example, reports for the quarter ending September 30, 2009, must be submitted no later than October 31, 2009.
  • Magnetic media should be accompanied by a completed Magnetic Media Transmittal Form.
  • The Magnetic Media Transmittal Form is available for download in Microsoft Word 6.0 format.
  • All magnetic media must have an external label which contains, at a minimum, the Remitter Number or account number and the Quarter/Year for which the report is being submitted. Should more than one tape or diskette be required for the submittal, a volume number should be included on the external label (e.g., diskette 1 of 3, diskette 2 of 3, tape 3 of 3.) The name and address must be included on the external label if the media is to be returned to a different address than that of the remitter on the Magnetic Media Transmittal Form.
  • Tapes will be returned to the Remitter after processing; Diskettes will not be returned.

General Information About Record Layouts

  • The ESC record layout may be used for both tapes and diskettes.
  • The Federal record layout is the MMREF format for both tapes and diskettes.

The Federal record layout for tapes and diskettes is taken directly from the Social Security Publication, Magnetic Media Reporting and Electronic Filing (MMREF). Only those records and fields required by NC are included in the publication, "Quarterly Wage Reporting - Specifications and Record Layouts for Magnetic and Electronic Filing". NC will read data from only those fields in the Code RE and RS.

Refer to the Magnetic Media Reporting and Electronic Filing for valid entries for other fields and records if you are submitting the complete Federal format; otherwise, all other locations in the Code RE and RS records should be filled with spaces.

  • The ICESA record layout may be used for both tapes and diskettes.

The ICESA record layout for tapes and diskettes is taken directly from the ICESA publication "ICESA Format." Only those records and fields required by NC are included in the publication, "Quarterly Wage Reporting - Specifications and Record Layouts for Magnetic and Electronic Filing". NC will read data from only those fields in the Code E and S records as indicated under the "ICESA Format" section of the handbook.

Refer to the "ICESA Format" for valid entries for other fields and records if you are submitting the complete ICESA format; otherwise, all other locations in the E and S records should be filled with spaces.

See the special instructions for preparing multi-volume diskettes in the ICESA format in the handbook under "ICESA Diskette Specifications".

General Tape Requirements

  • Files should be written on 1/2" magnetic tape, in the unpacked mode, using only 9-track tapes or 3480 cartridges.
  • Magnetic tape recorded in EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code) is preferred; however, ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) will be accepted.
  • Reel tapes must be recorded at 1600 or 6250 bpi. Only 3480 cartridge tapes in the standard style and format will be accepted.
  • Compressed files cannot be processed.
  • Tapes may have standard internal labels or be unlabeled. Standard labels are preferred. Labels must be coded in the same character set as the data file. ASCII tapes must be unlabeled.
  • Specifications for Magnetic Media Reporting

General Diskette Requirements
 The preferred diskette format is a nondelimited ASCII text file with carriage return and line feed characters at the end of each record and a standard end-of-file marker which has been generated on a MSDOS or PCDOS machine (i.e., an IBM or IBM compatible personal computer).

ESC of NC does have a limited capacity to process other formats. Contact the Wage Records Unit at (919) 707-1191 for information regarding submitting diskettes with other formats or which are produced under other operating systems.

  • The file or dataset name must be ESCNC.WGS for diskettes in the ESC format. Federal format files may use the file name W2REPORT.
  • ESCNC.WGS or W2REPORT must be the only file or dataset on the diskette.