How do you file an Alabama weekly certification on time?

Alabama pays by the week, and each week has to be claimed on its own. The application that opened your claim does not claim any weeks for you.

How to file your weekly certification

The Alabama Department of Workforce takes weekly certifications online and by phone, with the same deadline on both: no later than 6 calendar days after the end of the week you are claiming. The Department's own filing window puts an hour on that day. It opens at 12:01 a.m. on the Sunday and closes at 5:00 p.m. Central on the Friday, and a certification filed after 5:00 p.m. that Friday is late. Treat Friday afternoon as the deadline rather than the whole sixth day.

Online, log into your Claimant Portal account and choose the weekly certification button on the portal home page, then work through the questions.

By phone, you need 2 things: your Social Security number, and the PIN you created when you filed your unemployment claim. Do not share that PIN with anyone. It is your electronic signature, and it is legally valid and enforceable.

Those lines file a weekly certification or check the status of one. Filing a new claim or reopening an old one goes to a separate number, on the page about filing an Alabama claim.

There is a second clock after you submit. When a weekly claim has been filed but the agency needs more information about it, you are notified to contact the agency, and you have 4 calendar days from that notice to do it.

If you have lost your PIN or cannot get into the portal, call 1-800-361-4524 after 5 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, to book a call back for the next day. Only one call back a week can be booked, so keep your phone nearby all day once you have one.

What the certification asks you

Every answer is about the week you are claiming, which runs Sunday through Saturday. The questions cover whether you were able to work and available for it, the gross wages you earned, whether you have started a job, and who you contacted looking for work.

Under the Department's rules you are available for work if you are in the vicinity, physically able, and free to accept work during the full-time hours and full work week, and the shifts normally worked in your trade or industry. Availability for part-time work only does not meet the test, unless you have a disability and medical documentation showing you cannot hold full-time employment. Being in the vicinity does not require you to be physically present: it only requires that you can be reached by telephone or other electronic means.

Willing to accept work means showing you will take any work you are qualified for by previous training or experience, where that work counts as suitable under Alabama law.

When your payment arrives

Your first payable week in a benefit year is a waiting week. You serve it, and no benefits are paid for it. File a weekly certification for it anyway. A week only counts as your waiting week if it met the requirements to be payable and you certified for it, so skipping it does not get it over with, it pushes it onto the next week instead. Nothing is deducted from your claim for the waiting week.

After that, certify before 5 p.m. and your payment is normally made on the next business day. Allow 48 hours for the bank or debit card handling your account to process it. Delays do happen; if a payment looks unusually late, book a call back on 1-800-361-4524.

You picked how to be paid when you filed: direct deposit to a checking or savings account, or the AL Vantage Prepaid Benefits Card. You can change that choice at any time.

A claim normally takes 2 to 3 weeks to process. If it is approved and you chose the card, the card reaches you within 5 to 7 business days from the date your first payment is issued. It is serviced by Comerica Bank, and once eligible payments have been issued to it you can reach card services toll free on 1-833-888-2779.

The work search: 3 employers every week

Alabama law defines a reasonable and active effort to find work as systematic and sustained effort, including contacting at least 3 prospective employers for each week of unemployment you claim. The Department requires proof of those efforts when you file your weekly certification, and a later week's proof may not name the same employer again unless that employer has said since your first contact that it is hiring. The Department reviews at random at least 5 percent of the work search proof claimants hand in each week.

Alabama residents are registered for work with the Alabama Career Center System automatically when they file. That registration stays active for 90 days. To keep it active for the rest of your claim, visit an Alabama Career Center, or sign in to the state job bank and update your online résumé; the job search page covers both.

The work search does not apply in every week:

• Jury duty. Missing the work search does not cost you the week when the reason is that you were before any court of the United States or of any state under a lawfully issued summons to appear for jury duty.
• A short layoff. On a temporary, customary, or seasonal layoff not expected to run past 8 weeks, from an employer who normally gives you permanent, continuing work, no work search is required while that layoff lasts.
• A state of emergency. The Governor may suspend the work search requirement by executive order during a state of emergency, as far as federal law allows.
• Approved training. Enrolling in a course of training approved by the Secretary waives the availability and work search requirements altogether.

Reporting work and earnings

Report the gross wages you earned for any work you did in the week you are claiming. Wages count in the week you earn them, not the week they are paid, so report them even if the money has not reached you yet. Reporting wages by their payment date instead is a common mistake, and it can leave you with an overpayment to pay back.

Earning something in a week does not automatically end the payment for that week. How much Alabama pays sets out what a week's earnings do to the amount.

As soon as you start working again, tell the Department, no later than the Sunday following your start date. Answer yes to the return-to-work question on your weekly certification, or call the Inquiry Line on 1-800-361-4524. Do not wait until your first paycheck arrives.

Stopping, and starting again

There is no form for ending a claim. If you stop filing weekly certifications, for any reason, the claim goes inactive by itself. If you then certify again, the system tells you that you have had a break in your claim series and gives you instructions; follow them, because that is what protects the benefits you have left.

Once you have not certified for two weeks or more, you are told to reopen the claim by calling the Claims Line on 1-866-234-5382, or 800-548-2546 on TTY. The part worth knowing before you stop is that a reopened claim runs from the week you make that call, not from the week you stopped. Weeks in the gap are gone, so if you are out of work and simply missed a few, reopen it as soon as you notice rather than at the end of the month.