UAN or Universal Account Number is a number that is of vital importance for salaried employees, who contribute a part of his/her income towards the Employee Provident Fund. UAN is a unique identification number that is linked to EPF.
What is Universal Account Number?
UAN is a 12digit number that each member of the Employee Provident Fund is allotted against his/her name. The number remains constant throughout an employees’ professional life. In case of change of job, a new member ID is allotted under EPF but UAN remains the same. UAN helps in tracking total EPF contributions, under previous employer(s) as well as current employer, all in one place.
Benefits of UAN:
The UAN of EPF is very useful for employees to check PF related activities. UAN benefits employers as well since it helps them perform PF updates and other necessary tasks.
- The UAN helps the EPFO in tracking the changes in the organizations for the employees.
- When an employee changes job, he needs to link the new PF account to the UAN and then the EPFO will update the same in its records.
- UAN facilities can also be accessed online. The UAN e-Sewa portal has many facilities that make PF withdrawal and transfers easy by making it a few clicks away when change of job takes place.
- UAN also ensures that all PF accounts of the employee are valid and genuine.
Few more Important Points
The employer or the organization can authenticate employees through their UAN if KYC documents are verified.
- The employer or the organization shall not be able to deduct or hold back employees PF as the UAN is online and hence is visible for any activity done.
- Employees can check the deposit of PF by the employer every month by registering on the EPF Member Portal using our 12 digit UAN. The EPF passbook facility can be accessed by sending an SMS EPFOHO UAN ENG to 7738299899 from the registered mobile number with the EPFO.
Advantages:
- With UAN, employer involvement has reduced drastically. The PF of the old organization will be transferred to the new PF account once KYC verification is complete.
- The employee needs to give his UAN details and KYC to the new organization and the old PF is just transferred to the new PF account once the verification is done. Hence, there is no manual process of transferring funds explicitly.
- By subscribing to SMS service, notifications are received whenever a contribution is made by the employer.
Easy Withdrawal/Transfer Funds
When an employee switches company, he can either withdraw or transfer PFs. Earlier the process was so tedious that people did not utilize their PF. After the launch of UAN, the task has become easier. All PF accounts can be linked together with unique UAN. Once the UAN is shared with the employer, account can be managed online after KYC verification. The PF withdrawal process is very easy as well.
Easy Management of EPF through UAN
- The UAN comes very handily throughout an employee’s career. By just sharing UAN and PF account details to various employers the process becomes easier. All old accounts are linked to single UAN.
- Download UAN card by registering at the EPFO UAN e-Sewa member portal.
- KYC verification can also be done online by just uploading the scanned KYC documents by Employee on the portal.
- The UAN also helps in monitoring and checking the process status for the claim transfer on the EPFO portal.
- Using UAN, PF balance can be checked by just downloading or accessing the passbook from EPFO’s website.
Bhoi Smrutirekha Dharanidhar