The first run of the Incomes Register was trouble-free, but straight after that the system froze due to a technical fault. The error only persisted one hour and the introduction continued. Some other minor challenges occurred during the first day, but finally we managed to get the register into use on 2 January 2020 just before 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

We got the first user experiences on Friday, 3 January. An inquiry from the register aroused astonishment, as the register provided the requested information within a few seconds. That is a concrete indication of the benefit of the Incomes Register. It shortens the time from submitting an application to the payment of the money to the applicant’s bank account. It requires, however, that the employer uses the voluntary greater level of detail in reporting the income. So you should check with your employer that they use the greater level of detail in reporting the income to the Incomes Register.

On the very first day we spotted salary information that had not been reported to us in one applicant’s income information. So the applicant had applied for daily allowance without having reported to have been at work. Such cases are rare and usually result from misunderstandings and human errors. Anyway, one of the benefits of the Incomes Register is that the decisions on earnings-related daily allowance are based on up-to-date information, and thus the number of erroneous payments and claims for recovery will decrease. In practice, it also means that there will be considerably fewer opportunities for the abuse of benefits.

Employers report the income information to the Incomes Register. It has appeared that in some cases income information has been reported under the wrong type of income. That may affect the daily allowance. As you will be able to retrieve the income information directly to the application in the future, it is good to have a look at the income information and evaluate whether they match the actual income. It is, of course, possible to correct anything afterwards, but it’s most convenient, if we can get everything fixed in one go.

You can view your own information at www.tulorekisteri.fi. 

Although the Incomes Register kept us busy in YTK in January, our members have not yet seen any significant changes. For example, our online service OmaYTK is still the same. It means that it requests you to attach salary certificates as before. However, a salary certificate is not necessary for deciding on daily allowance, because we get the income information from the Incomes Register.

In February–March we will launch some changes in OmaYTK. The changes will allow you to retrieve the income information already when filling out the application. In addition, the application will in the future guide you to specify the income information to some degree, because the information in the Incomes Register is not necessarily enough to make a decision concerning a benefit case.

So the change means that when you apply for daily allowance, we will request for fewer attachments in the future, but you need to provide more information in the application.

The Incomes Register opens up an opportunity to make unemployment security quicker, more apt and flexible. Hence we are satisfied with the access to the Incomes Register. Our members will see it as elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy, and they will have more time to develop their own working life.