Frequently asked questions

No. Kiriwake does not calculate payroll or issue payslips. It exports approved change requests and the month’s hires and leavers as CSV, to hand off to your payroll software, payroll staff or sharoushi (labour and social security attorney).

It calculates, but does not file. Besides collecting, checking and approving the 2026 declarations and documents such as insurance certificates, Kiriwake calculates the annual tax and the refund or shortfall for 2025 and 2026, for employees subject to the year-end adjustment (kō column). The calculation uses a rule-based engine, not AI. In our tests, results match the National Tax Agency’s published worked examples to the yen, but the calculation has not been reviewed by a licensed tax accountant, so HR should check results before finalizing. After finalizing, you can create the withholding slip (employee copy) and a year-end calculation sheet as PDF, in Kiriwake’s own layout rather than the official form image. Kiriwake does not prepare or file salary payment reports or the statutory records summary, and does not file via e-Tax or eLTAX; these stay with your payroll software or a tax accountant or other professional.

Yes, by CSV. For year-end adjustment, pay figures can be imported in Kiriwake’s CSV format or from the “year-end data” CSV exported by PCA Kyuyo (PCA給与). Kiriwake can also export CSV in PCA Kyuyo’s generic-data layouts (year-end data, employee master – family), based on PCA’s published layout specification; importing these files into PCA Kyuyo has not been tested yet. Integrations with SmartHR, freee, Money Forward, Yayoi or Kyuyo Bugyo, and the NTA year-end adjustment software’s XML data, are not supported.

No. Kiriwake does not collect My Number (Individual Number), including in year-end declarations, and we ask customers not to upload documents that contain one. Please keep managing My Number in your payroll software or current process.

Yes. Kiriwake includes attendance management: clock-ins, timesheets, clock-in correction requests with approval, leave requests and balances, and monthly close. It does not calculate wages or overtime premiums, and does not support shifts or flexible working hours. Data is exchanged with other systems by CSV (monthly and daily attendance CSV export, and employee record CSV import and export). Integrations through other systems’ official APIs are planned, with the freee HR (freee人事労務) API under evaluation as the first.

Yes. A typical setup is to collect, check and approve documents and information in Kiriwake, then export the reviewed data as CSV and hand it to your sharoushi or tax accountant. Kiriwake does not assume any particular payroll software or provider.

Yes. The employee portal is available in Japanese, Vietnamese and English, so employees can submit onboarding documents, change requests and year-end declarations in their own language. The workspace, employee screens and user guide are also available in Japanese, English and Vietnamese. AI translation of individual messages and plain-Japanese explanations are not offered yet.

Yes. Every AI-extracted field is shown as “unverified” until a member of staff confirms or corrects it, and you can see the source page and text for each value. Documents with unverified fields cannot be approved.

No. Kiriwake does not file notifications or electronic applications with government agencies, and it does not determine immigration status or work eligibility or give legal or tax advice. Those remain with your staff and professional advisers.

PDF, JPEG and PNG files up to 10 MB each. For onboarding you can use types such as employment contracts, residence cards, passports and payroll bank account forms; for year-end adjustment, insurance premium certificates and previous employers’ withholding slips, among others. Documents containing a My Number or health information are out of scope.

Yes. Employee numbers, names, employment types, departments, hire dates and more can be imported in bulk by CSV, and employee records can be exported as CSV.

Yes. Organisation admins can define tasks, required documents, approval steps and target due dates in templates, and tasks can be added to individual cases.

Documents are stored without public URLs and can only be viewed by signed-in users with permission in the same organisation. Traffic is protected with HTTPS. See the security page for details.

Yes. You can start with one process, such as onboarding or year-end adjustment, and a small team. We will review your current workflow and help with the initial setup.

Yes. AI processing is opt-in per organisation and off by default. Without it you can still collect and manage documents, enter and verify fields manually, review and approve change requests and year-end declarations, and export CSV.