Finding a TaxCycle field code
TaxCycle will hand them to you. Create Excel Template sits on the same Excel Import dropdown as the import itself and writes out the open form's real field codes, line numbers and descriptions. That export is the only source worth trusting, because the codes belong to a particular form in a particular tax year.
Let TaxCycle export them
On the same Data → Excel Import dropdown as the import itself there is Create Excel Template. Run it with a form open and TaxCycle writes a spreadsheet describing that form: a FieldCode column, an empty Data column for your values, a Line# column telling you which line of the return each one feeds, a Description, and a Data Type column carrying the numbers that correspond to a dropdown’s or checkbox’s choices.
That file is both your reference and your import file. Fill in the Data column and it goes straight back in.
Create the blank rows before you export. If the form has an expandable table — a list of medical expenses, a list of donations — TaxCycle will not export field codes for it unless at least one row already exists. Make as many empty rows as you expect to fill, then export, and you get a code per row.
Export the form you actually mean
The export describes whatever form is on screen, and it does not argue if that is not the form you had in mind. We once saved a template under a union-dues name that was, when anyone finally looked, an exact copy of the employment-expenses worksheet export. Nothing complained. It simply produced a wrong map that then looked authoritative for weeks.
Open the form, confirm the title is the form you meant, export, then read a couple of the Description cells before you trust the file. Ten seconds, and it is the only check that catches this.
One field at a time
You do not need a whole template to get one code. Click into the field, then hold Ctrl+Shift and click the field code shown in the blue bar at the bottom left of the window. TaxCycle copies it to the clipboard and helpfully removes the double braces and the CurrentClient. prefix on the way, which leaves it in exactly the shape an import file wants.
Reading a code you have been handed
The first part of a field code is the form or table the value lives on, which means a code tells you where it belongs before you go looking. These are the roots we have exported from live TaxCycle forms:
| Code root | The form it lives on |
|---|---|
ExpensesDetails | Medical Expenses worksheet |
CharitableDonations | Donations worksheet, feeding Schedule 9 |
ChildCareExpensesTable | T778, Child Care Expenses |
T776 | T776, Statement of Real Estate Rentals |
T2125 | T2125, Business or Professional Activities |
T1MForm | T1-M, Moving Expenses Deduction |
EmploymentExpenses | T777WS, the employment expenses worksheet |
StudentLoansTable | Student Loan Interest worksheet |
PaymentsMade | Support Payments worksheet, the payments-made table |
CarryingCharges | The Schedule 4 carrying charges area |
T4Slips.T4 | T4 slips, as a transposed slip worksheet |
The employment expenses one is the trap in that list. The codes live under EmploymentExpenses and the form is T777WS, the worksheet — not T777, the CRA form. Searching for T777 takes you somewhere that does not hold those codes, and the import is then refused for the reason the open form always causes refusals.
Why a downloaded list is not a shortcut
Codes belong to a form in a tax year. A list from elsewhere cannot tell you which module it was taken from, whether its expandable-table rows match the rows you have, or whether the form has since been restructured. The export takes ten seconds and is right by construction, because TaxCycle wrote it.
What we do about it
KeyGlance keeps a field-code map per tax year, harvested from these same exports, and uses it to build the import file from a client’s actual paperwork. Every value on it stays linked to the spot on the page it was read from. It never files anything with the CRA.
Questions we get asked about this
Is there a master list of TaxCycle field codes I can download?
Not one worth using. Codes belong to a particular form in a particular tax year, and a list found elsewhere has no way of telling you which module it came from. TaxCycle's own Create Excel Template export is the authoritative source and it takes about ten seconds per form.
Do field codes change between tax years?
They can, and the ones on expandable tables are the most likely to move. Treat a code as belonging to the module you exported it from, and re-export when you move to a new year rather than assuming last season's map still holds.
How do I get the code for one single field without exporting anything?
Click into the field, then hold Ctrl+Shift and click the field code in the blue bar at the bottom left of the window. TaxCycle copies it to the clipboard and strips the double braces and the CurrentClient prefix for you, which is exactly the form an import file wants.