As the end of 1st Quarter nears, it’s a good time to review your payroll reports and setups to verify that wages and taxes will be correctly reported on your quarterly returns. The following reports will identify potential problems. They can all be found under Reports ? Tax Reports, and the first five are also listed under “Final Validation Reports” in the Payroll task list.
- Un-updated Deduction Pay Masters: Pinpoints Pay IDs that have not gone through the Update Payroll History process, which would mean they’d be excluded from 941s and W-2s due to not having been updated to a Calendar Month or Year.
- Federal/State Earnings Comparison: Identifies employees whose Federal wages don’t equal their State wages, which would indicate a problem, unless they had a deduction that intentionally sheltered Federal, but not State wages.
- FICA/Medicare Earnings Comparison: Identifies employees whose FICA wages don’t equal their Medicare wages, either because they were exempt from FICA, met the FICA gross limit for the calendar year, or have an issue that needs to be addressed.
- FICA Calculation Report: Determines whether any employees’ FICA is outside the acceptable rounding difference of 6.2% of taxable earnings. If any employees’ is, the necessary adjustments would need to be determined.
- Deduction Pay Masters/Calendar Comparison: Compares employees’ Deduction Pay Masters (which determine tax liability) to Deduction Calendar Summaries (which project 941 and W-2 taxable wages and tax amounts), and distinguishes differences that are valid (because they were the result of adjustments having been made in the Change Deduction Earnings/Amounts process) from those that require further investigation.
- 941 Tax Liability Report: Shows employees’ Federal, FICA and Medicare earnings, sheltered amounts and tax liabilities by Pay ID, month and quarter, as well as a total number of employees with each deduction.
- Consolidated Tax Report: Details employees’ Federal, FICA, Medicare and State earnings, sheltered amounts and taxes for the selected quarter, and provides YTD totals.
- Note that the 941 Tax Liability Report and Consolidated Tax Report should match, unless any adjustments have been entered on the Change Payroll Deduction/Earnings Amounts screen, without the indication to Adjust Gross in Pay Master.
We encourage you to refer to our online document that provides ranging recommendations for these reports, as well as tips to help you balance your tax deductions each payroll, month, quarter and year.
Please submit a cyber support request if you have any questions as you prepare for quarter end.
