PAY MASTER PAYROLL SYSTEM Florida Version 79nt

Transcription

1 PAY MASTER PAYROLL SYSTEM Florida Version 79nt Distributed by BNX Company Killearn Lane Springhill., Fl Telephone Copyright BNX Company All Rights Reserved Telephone St Petersburg, FL Pay Master 79nt Payroll was designed and compiled for the seasoned, as well as the novice, payroll operator. 1It enables the user to process, track, & report employee earnings accurately and more efficiently than ever before. Using this manual, the user has a complete basic overview of the program itself. It is fully customizable to meet your company needs by allowing you to edit, highlight, and add your individual notes. We recommend reading this manual as written, printing important pages for reference, and continually updating those areas critical to your particular needs. If you find there are reports, and\or modules that you desire for your reporting, please contact BNX Company, so that we may advise you on the different capabilities of the program, or the potential of customizing these reports for you. This manual covers Pay79nt version which includes H2a workers. H2a employees are foreign workers with a work permit to do agricultural harvesting, etc. They work on a "contract" basis, are not subject to payroll taxes, social security taxes, Medicare taxes or federal WH taxes. H2a employees are not required to have an assigned US social security ID number but may have such a number. If any H2a Employee does not furnish a valid social security number, then for reporting purposes you should enter as the social security number. This will prevent AccuWage from reporting errors with your W-2 Mag Media report. According to Publication 51, H2a Employers are not required to be covered and the employer is not required to pay Federal Unemployment taxes., however both Federal and State unemployment reports are setup to include or exclude H2a employees. This will cover any future changes in reporting. 1

2 H2a employees do receive a "W2" from the Employer with Earnings in Box 1 of the W_2 form. These employees are also reported in the W-2 mag media report. The employer must pay H2a employees a minimum Wage that may be different from the national or state minimum wage. The employer must also guarantee the employee a minimum numbers of hours work per week. There are Six (6) Employee Types and eight (8) pay adjust codes. Depending upon your company s policy you may have up to four (4) pay adjust code amounts listed on the standard check as you desire. The default values are as follows; RH = Regular Hourly Employee with Pay Adjust Overtime and Minimum Wage Pay S = Salary with Pay Adjust Sick and Vacation Pay S+ = Salary with Pay Adjust Bonus, Commission, Sick Pay and Vacation Pay H = H-2a Contract with Pay Adjust Overtime, Minimum Wage, H2a Travel and H2a Meals PW = Piece Work with Pay Adjust Minimum Wage Blank (No Code) = 1099 contract persons/company with no Pay Adjust. All employee pay is also tracked by Department codes and the pay period may be split between 12 different departments. You name the departments in Change Department Titles and can track payroll by location, grove, ownership or variety. Pay79 will also track 24 work tasks, including units, hours and pay amount. You name the work task in Change Work Task Titles ** Pay Master 79nt is available in a network version. This allows more than one user to process your weekly pay data input; however, if the program is being used on more than one machine, it is imperative that only one user adds new employee information. The system will automatically number each new employee when entered and with more than one person adding, you may have overlapping records. Talk to BNX Company about our Network capabilities on Version 79nt. The use of hot keys will considerably speed up the process of data entry. Any underscored letter, i.e.: File, Process, Reports, Maintenance, Get, Find, Transaction, etc. will activate that function rather than taking your hands from the keyboard. The use of the tab keys to move within the screen, or Shift Tab, which will reverse your direction, will add to your efficiency. The mouse will allow you to highlight any field, push any button, or correct mistakes at any time. The Escape (Esc) key on your upper left corner of your keyboard will close the current window, or using Alt F4 (at same time), or hitting the Close X box in the upper right corner of the screen will also close any open window. In most areas the program will designate where and when it needs Cap Locks but it is recommended to begin every session by enabling your cap lock feature on your keyboard. It makes reports, checks, and W2 s more legible if you are consistent on your data entry. All payroll records are kept on a calendar year basis. You may enter dates in the MMDDYY format and the program will translate the last 2 digits ( or ) either to 10/ 29/2011 or 10/ 29/ This method will speed up the process of inputting data. Basic information must be supplied through the maintenance menu in order to take full advantage of the many features of the program. Please enter the following data. 2

3 COMPANY MAINTENANCE Company information: The Company Name and the Federal ID Number are permanently embedded in the program and cannot be changed. All other data may be changed as necessary. The data in the fields are used throughout the programs in report labels and to calculate values. The Last Emp Number field is used to provide automatic employee numbering in Add New Employee module.the W-2 Retire Code is used in the W-2 printing program to print the correct letter code to identify the type of IRS retirement pay is being reported. Caution! When entering Comp Code numbers and descriptions, be careful to place only 1 (one) space between the number and title. The Rate is the premium per 100 dollars in pay for the associated comp code. These values are used in Reports. Once your data has been corrected, press Alt + U to update. If no changes are made, you may press Alt +C to close. 3

4 DEPARTMENT SYSTEM MAINTENANCE Version Pay79 The following data needs to be entered in for Department Maintenance. The Department Title is limited to sixteen (16) characters. These totals will accumulate per employee in Employee Maintenance Department Totals. Payroll Adjust labels descriptions may be changed ONLY at the beginning of the operating year. 4

5 Edit Work Task Titles Pay 79 Every pay element can be assigned a Work Task on entry. This will help designate where your payroll dollars are being spent and used for other accounting purposes. There are 24 task options which may be labeled in the maintenance menu under Edit Work Task Titles. The Work Task Title is limited to sixteen (16) characters. 5

6 FEDERAL TAX TABLE The Federal Income Tax tables are found in the Internal Revenue Service Publication, Circular E. The Social Security, Medicare, & Futa Tax rates and limits are also from the same source as the tax tables. Each state set its own State Unemployment Tax Rate, (SUTA), per company s incidental rate. This SUTA rate may be changed during a payroll year. In some years the withholding table is six (6) rows, place row 6 data in rows 7 and 8 in order to calculate the correct withholding tax. 941 employees should be assigned to crew number 1 through crew number employees are assigned to crews #11 through Crew number 899. Crew numbers 900 through 999 are reserved for contract (1099) persons or companies. The report section will generate many standard reports on a selective criteria basis. Custom reports are available on request. 6

7 MAINTENANCE MENU ADD EMPLOYEE The payroll system will assign the employee ID number. After entering the new employee s name, address and telephone number as shown above, you should enter the social security number and then press the Check Duplicate Social Security Number button to see if any other employee has been entered using this number. In the event that the employee has been entered as a 1099 Contractor or if you are using a 900 series crew number to print reimbursement checks for an employee, then a duplicate number is normal. However no two different employees should have the same social security number. If you do not have all applicable data or you enter data in error, any data can be added or corrected in the following Edit or Delete Employee Screens. These screens complete the access to each employee master data file for editing purposes. Be very careful in making changes. All data after class code is updated by the system and should rarely be edited. There are exceptions to the above statement. The QTR1 Pay thru QTR4 Pay is updated from the Earnings By Quarter, Post And Report selection under Main Menu Payroll Operating Reports. This data comes from the payroll history file. 7

8 MAINTENANCE MENU EDIT EMPLOYEE SCREEN 1 &2 This screen is provided for editing Alien number and expiration date as well as all WPS (Worker Protection) data required for State and Federal Reports 8

9 EDIT PAY DATA2 AND DEPARTMENT TOTALS 9

10 EDIT EMPLOYEE TASK

11 EDIT EMPLOYEE PAY ADJUST MAINTENANCE MENU EDIT EMPLOYEE HISTORY The find module uses the Employee Id Number plus the pay date in mmddyy format. This Find module will locate records containing the above two (2) data element entered as one (1) continuous number in the Find box. 11

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13 PROCESS EMPLOYEE EARNINGS Now that all basic data has been entered, you are ready to Process the employee earnings. The Process Menu is designed to work from top to bottom and every report should be run in their precise order each pay period. 13

14 PAYROLL LOOK UP AND SELECT FEATURE This version of Payroll, has added look up and Select, pop up screens used to aid in selections of options during adding OR Editing data. This feature can increase speed and accurate data input. In order for this feature to work correctly, the master files used, must be maintained. The access to this maintenance is located under Main Menu Selection Maintenance\System Data Maintenance\Company Maintenance. Of course you may still enter data by typing in the control numbers or data. Examples of the look up and Select pop up screens are shown below and on the following pages. On the Add Employee screen there are Three (3) look up and select pop up screens. Department Code, Work Comp Ctl Code with Class Code description, and as shown above, Payroll Pay Cycle Codes. This shows an example of setting up the default Payroll Cycle for this employee to be Weekly payrolls. 14

15 This is an example of using the Employee Id Number look up an select pop up screen. When the employee Dunhill, Donald D. is selected and the Get Employee Data button is pushed, all existing data is displayed for editing Add Employee Pay Data Screen has six (6) look up and select pop up screens. This is an example of the Payroll Pay Type Codes look up feature, which will place this pay element in the Regular Pay category. 15

16 If you choose to use the Look up and Select pop up screens, you may use either the Tab then Shift Bar key or the Mouse to activate the screens and make selections at Maintenance/Employee Data Maintenance/ Add Employee and Process/Add Payroll Transactions To File. If you use the Mouse, left click on the control button and the look up and select screen will open. Then click on the selection you desire, the data will be highlighted. Next click on Close button and the pop up screen will close and the regular screen will appear with the selected data. This method must be used in the Menu Selection Maintenance/Employee Data Maintenance/Edit Employee Mater Data, which has multiple edit screens. Data entry will be faster under selections Maintenance/Employee Data Maintenance/ Add Employee and Process/Add Payroll Transactions To File using the Tab key to advance to the control button and then press the Shift Bar key to activate the pop up screen. When the pop up screen opens, use the Down arrow key or the Page Down/Up keys to move to your selection. When the desired selection is highlighted, use the Tab key to advance to the Close button and press Shift Bar, the pop up screen will close and the regular screen will appear with the selected data. The Tab and press Shift Bar can be used in the Menu selection Maintenance/Employee Data Maintenance/Edit Employee Mater Data, which has multiple edit screens. As show above, you CAN use the Mouse in that menu selection. In the event you do not chose to use the Look up and Select pop up screens you may continue to move to the data entry box and type in the control data. 16

17 BACK UP AND ARCHIVE PROGRAM AND DATA With the large storage space in all modern computers, there is no longer any reason to be caught without a current copy of your valuable program and data. We strongly recommend that you use the ability to select a menu option and make a copy of the Program And Data To Any Valid Disk and Folder. This will take less than one minuet of your time and may save hours of work. As shown above the Default location is to copy the program and data to your C, (main computer hard drive), into the Archive folder and place the copy into a sub folder Pay79 and then into a folder holding this copy of the program and data that you can name. example Pay2011 OR bu which is the date of the backup OR WIP, which means work in progress. By changing the Drive Letter, you can copy the program and data to any external storage device, such as a memory stick, thumb drive OR a USB external drive. This will allow you to store this valuable information off site. This action will protect you from fire or theft. With any BNX Company software you may operate the program directly from the external storage unit or transfer the program and data to any computer that operates with Windows operating system. 17

18 WEEKLY PAYROLL ROUTINE First, enter all NEW employees and complete their basic payroll data. You cannot enter pay data for an employee not in the master file, and be sure to assign a crew number. Each employee may have as many as 10 different individual pay rates for work units during each pay period. Example; A worker picking Oranges may be paid a different per box rate each work period during a pay period. On Monday you may pay employee A $1.15 cents per box and on Tuesday you can pay employee A $1.05 per box. (You can set different rates on the same days for each of your employees.) The check stub will show the Rate and Number of Units (boxes) and the amount paid at this rate. You can use up to 10 different rates per employee per pay period. See sample Check and Stub. Example; A Service Worker such as a Food Server may be paid a minimum wage per hour and a share of tips for each day of the week during a weekly pay period. On Monday you may pay the server employee A at a pay rate of total tips divided by the number of customers served, num unit = number customers served. Then on Tuesday you can pay employee A at a pay rate of total tips divided by the number of customers served, num unit = number customers served, and so on throughout the week. You can set different rates on the same days for each of your employees.) The check stub will show the Rate and Number of Units (customers served) and the amount paid at this rate. You can use up to 10 different rates per employee per pay period. See sample Check and Stub. A manufacturing company can pay production employee s a base wage and a fee for each product unit completed. A sales man can be paid a base hourly wage and a commission for each sale completed. To comply with Florida law regarding an earnings statement, we provide 3 different payroll checks with stubs that covers (where called for,) specific information on earnings for up to 24 different work task, or 12 different departments. 18

19 PROCESS PAYROLL ADD PAYROLL TRANSACTION TO FILE Each element (or transaction) of the current payroll will be entered separately. If an employee works under 2 Workman s Comp Code, you would enter the first pay transaction for x number of hours and the correct pay rate, under the first comp code press the Add This Pay Transaction Button and then, with the Update button the pay element is added to the current pay. Next, make another entry for the number of hours or units and correct pay rate, under the second workman s comp code. When you Press the Add This Pay Transaction button, the program will again add these transactions together and calculates the correct taxes on the total pay due. Again press the Update button to add this pay element to the current pay data. In Version Pay79 you may allocate the above pay elements (transactions) to any of the 12 separate Departments and 24 separate Work Tasks.. Remember in the event the pay is not correct, the current pay, deductions and hours worked can be edited in Maintenance Option Employee Data Screen 1 and Unit Rate and Count along with current Workman s Comp Code Pay can be edited in Employee Data Screen 2. The Department Code allocated pay can be edited in Edit Employee Dept Code Amounts Most pay will be entered with a pay code of R for Regular pay, however, if you are paying the employee for Sick, Vacation, or Minimum Wage adjustment you must back up to Pay Code, and change to S Sick, M Minimum Wage, or V Vacation, or any of the eight (8) Pay Codes. The system adds to the Unit Count and Rate, the Current Work Comp and the Department Codes fields as payroll elements are added with the Add This.Pay 19

20 Transaction button. The dollars and hours-worked are added to the current payroll data when the Update button is pressed. If the Employee record has been setup for the employee to have a recurring deduction for Loan or Insurance, (deduction numbers 2 and 3,) the amounts will show automatically. You can also set up a recurring deduction for 401k retirement plan. If automatic deductions have not been setup or if the amounts are different this pay period, you can override any amount by entering them at this time. Hours or Units should use the decimal format. (Example 7 ¼ hours is input as 7.25 hours; 15 ¾ units is input as units.) This is necessary for the proper calculation of pay. Next, go to Process Payroll and enter payroll information from crew sheets or other work sheets. It may be necessary to enter two or more payroll elements (entries) if the employee is being paid different rates for different work units. It may also be necessary to enter two or more pay elements (entries) if the employee is working under two or more work comp codes. The above is also true in Payroll Version Pay79 when a employee s pay is being split between Departments. When entering a payroll element if a mistake is made in the entry and you correct the entry, you must go to Employee Maintenance Screen 2 and adjust the Current Work Comp Code and Units Rate and Amount of pay distribution. In Pay79 you must also go to Edit Employee Dept Code Amounts and Edit Work Task and adjust the current amounts. Once all weekly payroll has been entered, it is advisable to preview the Minimum Wage Adjustment Report. This report should be blank when reviewed, or those employees appearing are not meeting minimum wage, and will need to have an adjustment to pay to compensate. Proceed as follows to make minimum wage adjustments. There is a separate Minimum Wage and Minimum Number of Hours report for H-2a Employees. 20

21 Paymaster 79 Add Pay Data In all Paymaster payrolls an auto check on Minimum wage pay is performed each time the Add This Pay Transaction button is pressed. If the pay does not meet the minimum wages as set in the Federal tax table module, then the Min Wage Adjust box will turn red and the amount displayed is the amount that is less than minimum wage or H2a contract amount. You can correct this by NOT updating this pay element Or by adding the Minimum Wage Pay adjust amount shown and the number of units and hours shown on the bottom of the screen. 21

22 Go to Process/Add Payroll Transaction to File and enter a payroll element. Change Pay Code from R to M for minimum wage adjust. Enter Pay Rate using the Min Wage Adjust Amount from the report. Enter Number of Units using the Num Hrs Worked amount from the report. Enter the Number Hours using Num Hrs Worked from the report. In other words the Num Of Units and the Num Hrs Worked are the same. Since the payroll program operates on a Crew plus employee basis, you may want to prepare and print payroll checks by each crew. You can, of course, prepare and print all payroll checks at one time if you have a small number of crews, however this can become unwieldy if you have a large number of crews. 22

23 PRINT CHECK REGISTER This selection will print the check register for the selected crew or crews. Enter the first check number to be used for this crew or crews and also enter the crew numbers to be printed and the Payroll Date. You may preview the report and, if correct, print a hard copy for your files. Next, print a check resister to show the payroll information that will be printed on the checks. If this information is correct, then print checks. Please enter the payroll date to be typed on the check. Examples, for March 1, 2012, enter without any spaces or dashes between numbers. Enter the Week End Date in the same manner. Next enter the first check number for this printing. Enter the crew number of the employee s to receive checks in this printing. All checks are shown on the screen before printing. When you preview or print the checks the check number is updated to the employee record in Employee Data Screen 2 Last Check Num filed. If no Check Number entry is made, then no New check number will be updated in the Last Check Num field. PRINT CHECKS We are now ready to print checks. Please enter the payroll date to be typed on the check. Examples, for March 1, 2012, enter without any spaces or dashes between numbers. Enter the Week Start Date & End Date in the examples manner. Next enter the first check number for this printing. Enter the crew number of the employee s to receive checks in this printing. All checks are shown on the screen before printing. 23

24 When you Preview or Print the checks, the check number is updated to the employee record in Employee Data Screen 2 Last Check Num filed. If no Check Number entry is made, then no new check number will be updated in the Last Check Num field. We suggest you print a Current Work Comp Report and in version Pay79, print a Current Department and Work Task Report. If any employee shows up on the Current Work Comp report with 2 ** next to their wages, these employees record must be reviewed. An error has been made and improperly corrected which has caused an error on the weekly pay, and workman s compensation. Finally, update the master files. This will write this payroll information to the employee s payroll history file. This is accomplished by the Update Payroll and History Option under Process Payroll. PROCESS PAYROLL UPDATE MASTER FILES This option completes the payroll cycle. This option will update all employees included in this payroll period, master files and payroll history records. A payroll date is required and the system will not allow you to update files without an entry in this field. REPORTS MENU You have five (5) options on payroll reports. Payroll Master Files, Payroll History, Fed & State, Federal/State Reports, WPS/I-9 Reports and Special Reports. The multitude of reports are on selective criteria basis which will allow you to request & preview reports prior to printing to insure your data before making your final copy. Many have date ranges, crew ranges, clear data fields Y/N, and even some offer the option to view alphabetically, by employee number, and even by social security number. 24

25 On the Payroll Operating Reports you will find the Employee Master List, listing Employee Numbers, Social Security # s, Addresses, YTD earnings as well as YTD social security, Medicare, and Fed Withholding amounts. This report has several option listings which will enable you to find duplicate employee numbers, SS# s, and errors at a glance. The Employee Status Listing shows each employee s Marital Status, # of Dependents, Hire date, and Workman s comp default Class Codes. This may be previewed by listing all employees, or by individual crews. 25

26 Payroll History reports are used for inquiries on specific employee numbers and may be viewed From a Date, To a Date, or leaving the dates blank will list all pay dates and amounts. This report is ideal for reporting for Medicaid, Food Stamps, or Unemployment Reports when requested. Any Pay Adjust amounts will show in the detailed history report as a V, S, or M for Minimum Wage Adjustments. Employee Totals Only from Pay History is a complete report used for all employees, or by specific crews, by date range, or for duplicating reports that have been cleared by accident, IE; Fed. Deposit reports, Workman s comp, or Quarterly Totals. Payroll Totals Report is also used for accounting purposes to get a report to a date or from a date, to generate information for general accounting in general ledgers or a bank reconciliation. Earnings by Quarter, Update & Report will give you a total on each employee company wide or by crew, for every quarter. This is also used when reports have been cleared or when trying to balance Quarterly Unemployment Reports. The Employee Loan Status and Retirement Report is self-explanatory. When a loan is given to the employee, or a 401K amount is designated, it must be posted in Maintenance Screen 1 as to the amount of the initial loan and the Y placed in the 401K box. These amounts are maintained in the system as accumulative and can be reviewed from the reports menu. You will also find the 401K Totals only & Vacation & Sick Pay reports are for internal use to monitor earnings and attain information for benefits. YTD Department Pay Report and Department Cur & YTD Pay Totals are included on Version 58 and Pay79. These reports are used for a variety of reasons and upon installation will be discussed at length. They can be used for tracking earnings by grove, rates, variety, and a multitude of other purposes. 26

27 Federal/State Reports The first report on the Fed/State Report is the Employee New Hire/Rehire Report required by the government. This request is mandatory within 20 days of hire of new or rehired employees. It will print the report with the mailing address at the top of the page which can be folded and placed in a window envelope. This has not been enforced to date but was requested as of October 1998 and eventually may result in fines. Workman s Compensation Insurance Report: This report will use data from the master file data fields, YtdWkCompPay1, YtdWkCompPay2, YtdWkCompPay3, YtdWkCompPay5, YtdWkCompPay6, YtdWkCompPay7, and YtdWkCompPay8. You may set up YtdWkCompPay8 to be used for owners or any other regular pay excluded from these insurance premiums. The fields are cleared of all data after the final report is printed and are ready to begin the next report period. There is also a Workman s Compensation Insurance Report from history that may be printed by date range. This report is located on the Payroll History file menu at bottom of the drop down menu. Unemployment Reports: The Futa and Suta Pay is updated when you print the Quarterly Unemployment Report AND place a Y in the Clear Data Files field. The QTD Taxable Pay is updated to Futa and Suta Pay and the Qtd Taxable Pay is set to Blank. The Qtd Taxable pay then accumulates pay until the next report is printed and data files cleared. For the Quarterly Unemployment Reports (Paper and Magmedia,) to work, when you edit an employee, that employee must have a number in Num Wks Wk Qtr and the amount in Futa Pay must not, at present, be $7000. Suta pay must not be at present $8000, and there must be an amount in the QTD Taxable Pay field. The Futa and the Suta taxable pay limits are set in the Tax Table Maintenance Screen. 27

28 The Payroll Deposit report is derived from payroll history The detail report will show each employee in the report and the above data from the history file. The summary, at the end of the report, will show the actual amount of Medicare Tax, Social Security Tax and Federal Withholding Taxes withheld from the employee s pay. There will be a small difference in the amounts for Medicare and Social Security Taxes and the totals shown on the official deposit report sheet due to rounding of many small individual pay Calculations and the calculation of one (1) lump sum of all pay in the report. The Employer Medicare Tax, and Social Security Tax (FICA) amount is the shown on a separate line. There is a space on the official report form to show the rounding variance. The data is derived from Payroll History and may be printed for any date range. The report can span any time frame that the user decides on. This is usually not longer then monthly and may be every 3 working days after a pay period. The State Withholding Taxes are reported in a separate report. The W-2 forms and the W-2 Mag Media Reports will calculate the amount of Medicare and Social Security Taxes based on the Medicare and Social Security annual wages. The tax rates used are from the Federal Tax Screen. Federal Withholding Taxes will come from the total pay minus 401k deduction as shown on payroll checks. The calculated results using the tax table from Circular E as shown on the Federal Tax Screen. Annual Federal Withholding wages (and the calculations of taxes) will be net of any 401k or other retirement deductions. The retirement amount will be posted to the correct area in these reports. WPS and I-9 Reports are located on the third report menu selection. FILE MAINTENANCE AND YEAR END PROCESSING Read Carefully You should make copies of your program and/or data to a separate area on the Hard Drive and to removable disks. Copies are working duplicates. The data backups are in PKZIP compressed format. The program provides for user end of year processing by menu selected options. Under main menu option FILES, you will begin by saving a copy of the current year to the archive directory. We suggest those clients using the payroll program for a single company name the archive payroll Pay_2012 for your current year 2012 payroll. Clients that have payrolls for multiple companies could use file names such as Pay1_12 and Pay2_12 for their first payrolls, and follow with additional payrolls as needed. We also suggest that you make a Backup Program and Data to Removable Disk and save the disk in a safe place for a period of 4 years. This is the period that the Social Security administration requires that you be able to reproduce W2 data. Please create a shortcut to the Archive program and verify that the data is there before proceeding. Next you will need to decide if you will want to save your employee data from this year for the next year s operation. You may either save all employees or only those you have received a paycheck in the last quarter. If you elect to save the employees paid in the last 28

29 quarter, you should go to Main Menu Option Reports, selection Payroll Operating Reports sub option Earnings By Quarter, Update And Report, and run this option. This will post any check paid in the last (4th) quarter to the employee master files. Now you may return to Main Menu FILES, option Save Employee Records For New Year and run this option with Q = Save All With Pay In Last Quarter. You will now begin the New Year with all employees who received a check in the last quarter. Make any necessary changes to the resulting employee s data to reflect correct records for the first pay check in the New Year. You should go to Main Menu and select Maintenance option Edit Federal Tax Tables and make any adjustment call for in the screen. The correct tax table information is from IRS Publication 15. This can be downloaded from their site on the inter- net. You should have received a copy of Pub 15 in the mail. State tax table information may be obtained from the State Department of Revenues. Your next step after performing any maintenance on your employees, will be to go to Main Menu Maintenance option Company Maintenance and correct any data necessary for the new year. (Pay attention to Last Emp Num.) Change this number as needed and update file. You should now be ready to begin a New Year of operation. Good Luck! Revised April 25,

30 PAYROLL F A Q (Frequently Asked Questions) The questions and answers below are intended for the beginner, intermediate and experienced (but overworked) payroll person. Some questions and answers will apply only to certain versions of the payroll. Question: How do I add a new employee? Answer: From the payroll desktop, select Maintenance/ Add New Employee option. The Add New Employee Screen will open and an employee Id number will be assigned by the payroll system. Using the Tab Key, move from data field to data field, and type in all available data on the new employee. Now activate the Add control button either by using the Hot Key combo of Alt + A or use the mouse to move to the Add button and click the left mouse button. Any missing data may be added in the three (3) maintenance screens. Question: How do I Change information in an employee s master records. Answer: From the payroll desktop, select Maintenance and one of the 7 maintenance screens. ( Edit Employee Data Screen, Edit Pay Data Screen 2, etc.) Using the Tab Key, advance the cursor to the field that you wish to change the data. Type in the new data and move to the next field that you wish to change. Continue until you have made all changes. Now activate the Update control button either by using the Hot Key combo of Alt + U or use the mouse to move to the Update button and click the left mouse button. Your changes will now be recorded in the employee s master file. If you later find you have an error in the data, you may change the information at any time in the future and as often as necessary. BE VERY CAREFUL THAT THE DATA CHANGES ARE CORRECT. THE PROGRAM HAS NO WAY OF KNOWING ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF THE DATA YOU CHANGE. Question: I accidentally deleted an employee. How do I get them back? Answer: Once an employee s master record is deleted, that record is gone! However we can reconstruct the employee s records. The first step is, from the payroll desktop, select Maintenance/Add New Employee option and add a new employee with the same name and other data at the employee deleted. When the employee s new record is added, you should note the new employee Id number assigned by the payroll system. After adding the employee, you should go to Edit Employee Data Screen 1 and change the employee ID number to the number the employee held before you deleted the record. Activate the Update control button either by using the Hot Key combo of Alt + U or use the mouse to move to the Update button and click the left mouse button. 30

31 From the payroll desktop, select File/ Sort Employee Master File By Emp ID Number. This will place the employee s records back into the location as the old (deleted) record occupied. Changing the assigned employee ID number to the original number is necessary to reinstate a connection between the Payroll History file and the Employee Master file. Now print the employee s detail payroll history report by selecting from the payroll desktop, Reports/Payroll Operating Reports/Payroll History. With the data from this history report you should now Change the information in the employee s master records as described in the answer to;.question: How do I Change information in an employee s master records. Some data will have to be obtained from other sources to totally update all employee edit screens. Question: At times during the season we pay our fruit pickers different rates per box on different days and in different groves during a pay week. How many different rates may I use? Answer: You may use 10 different rates for each employee during a pay period (week). This means that if you have 100 employees to pay, you could have 1000 different pay rates. For the Unit Rate on the check stub to be displayed correctly, each rate must be in a minimum of 1 cent increments. In other words you can pay 95 cents per unit (box) or 96 cents per unit (box) but not 95 ½ cents per unit (box). The payroll program assumes that you may pay harvesting employees at the end of any day and that payment will be in U.S. dollars and cents. Question: One of our hourly employees works in our shop as a mechanic 3 days per week and works as a driver, at a different rate, two day per week. How do I make out his paycheck? Answer: Here we have two different rates of pay and two different Workman s Compensation Insurance rates that will apply to this employee. There will be two Payroll Transactions involved in this paycheck. From the payroll desktop, select Maintenance/ Add Payroll Transaction to File option. Find the employee and proceed as follows. If we assume an 8 hour workday, then we will first enter the following payroll transaction. Advance the cursor to the button Comp Ctl Code and activate the button by pressing enter or left click the mouse, a Pop Up screen will display the 8 work comp codes. Tab to the input field and make sure that the control code for Mechanic (a number from 1 to 8) is in this field. Next proceed to input the Pay Rate, Number of Units (24 hours), Number of Hours (24) and any deductions to pay that are applicable to this paycheck. Add this transaction and Update the master record. We are now ready to input the next Payroll Transaction for this employee s paycheck. Repeat the above procedure and change the Comp Ctl Code to the control code for Driver (a number from 1 to 8), the Pay Rate for these hours and Number of Units (16 hours) and the Number of Hours (16) and any additional 31

32 deductions for this pay check. Add this transaction and then Update the master record. The employee s paycheck stub will show what his pay is for each pay transaction. The master records will show what the pay was under the different Workman s Compensation Codes and the report will correctly calculate the Employer s workman s compensation insurance premium payments. Question: Our accountant wants us to assign each employee to a payroll department and submit a report on the total payroll amount charged to each department each payroll period. Answer: Payroll version Pay79 will track payroll amounts in twelve (12) current and year to date departments. You may split a payroll check between up to 12 departments or simply place the total pay into one department. You would use the same method as assigning amounts to Workman s Compensation Codes. There are three (3) different reports showing detail current department payroll data, year to date detailed department payroll data and a combined current and year to date department payroll totals. Payroll version Pay79 allows custom tracking of both current and year to date payroll in work units, hours and pay amounts in twelve (12) departments, as well as 24 Work Task. Question: How can I know if all piece work employees have earned the minimum hourly wage for the current pay period? Answer: From the payroll desktop, select option. Process/Minimum Wage Adjust List and Preview/Print the report. If any employee is not being paid minimum wage, his /her name and pay data will be on the report. If no names are on the report then all employees will be paid minimum wage or more. To correct Employees listed on Minimum Wage Adjust list, see page 14 of this manual. Question: How can I tell if the charges to workman s compensation codes are correct? Answer: From the payroll desktop, select option Process/Current Work Comp Report and Preview/Print the report. If the employee s total pay amount is equal to the sum of all current work comp codes amounts, then that employee s pay is in balance. If the employee s pay is out of balance, (the total pay amount in NOT equal to the sum of all current work comp codes amounts) then XX will be printed on the far right of that line of the report. You should return and check that employee s pay. You may want to redo the payroll-input process for this employee. 32

33 Question: At a Work Comp Insurance Company Audit is there a report that will help in answering any questions of the auditor. Answer: Yes, at the Menu Option Payroll History Reports/Wk Comp Report from Pay History there is the following report which can be selected by Employee Number, Crew Range and Date Range.. 33

34 Question: How can I redo or correct employees pay check data? Answer: You will need to clear ALL current payroll data from the first Six (6) employee maintenance screens. Under the Maintenance Menu move to the option Employee Data Maintenance / Clear/Delete Current Pay Data. Be very careful and enter the employee number. This action will clear ALL payroll data from the file. After clearing all current data from the first Six (6) employee maintenance screens you may now select main menu option Process/Add Pay Transaction To File and enter the pay information in the usual manner. Question: In Edit Employee Data Screen 2 there are no dollar amounts in QTR1 Pay, QTR2 Pay, QTR3 Pay or QTR4 Pay,fields. Why is this and what do I do to correct it? Answer: The dollar amounts for these fields are placed there from the Payroll History when you run the Earnings By Quarter, Update And Report option from the payroll desktop, Reports/Payroll Operating Reports/Earnings By Quarter, Update And Report. This Option should be run at the end of each month or anytime you need a Earnings By Quarter Report. Question: When I Preview/Print the Quarterly Employment Report one of my employees has 15 weeks worked. How does this happen and how do I correct this? Answer: The Quarterly Employment Report is generated from the payroll history payroll check records. The maximum number of weekly payroll checks (and therefore the number of weeks worked) during a quarter is 13. However you may write more than 13 checks in a quarter and the number of weeks worked must be corrected. Example; Bonus check, commission check or a check to correct an earlier underpayment. If, when previewing the Quarterly Employment Report, you see a number of weeks worked greater than 13, you should look at that employee s history file to determine how many checks were for a full weeks work. Then you should go to the Desktop Maintenance/Edit Employee Data Screen 3 option and change the Num Wks Wk Qtr field to the correct number. Don t forget to activate the Update button before you close the edit screen. You may now return to Preview/Print the Quarterly Employment Report and if correct, print the report. 34

35 Question: I did not clear data files after printing the Quarterly Unemployment Report, now I have more than one quarter s data in the files. How do I fix this problem? Answer: If for any reason you did not clear your data files after the last quarter report, you can use the following procedure to regenerate the quarterly reports. For payroll versions installed after 2009, Client may perform the following; Step 1: Use Payroll Operating Reports\Employee Quarter Earnings Report and at option, Set Unemployment Tax Pay To Zero (Y/N) insert a Y. Press Preview/Print Step 2: Use Reports\Payroll Operating Reports\Employe s Totals Only Earnings Report with date range of 1st quarter ( to ), and Set Number of Weeks Worked And QTD Pay to Y. Run this option. Step 3: Under Reports\Federal\State Reports\Quarterly Unemployment Report, print report and then set Clear Data Files (Y/N) to Y and run again to preview print. 35

36 Step 4: Repeat Steps 2 and 3 with correct date range in step 2 for subsequent quarters. Example, quarter 2( to ), quarter 3 ( to ) and quarter 4 ( to ), this will bring data up to date. Final Step: At the end of the last full quarter, enter the date of the first day of the new month to the current date, this will bring data up to date. Reports must be generated in sequence per above For inputting this data on the Internet, you may want to use the option Reports/Payroll Operating Reports/ Earnings By Qtr Update and Report. If all the data needed is the Employee s Total Quarterly Earnings use this report. The report list order can be selected by Employee ID Number, Alphabetically by Name, or in Social Security Number order. 36

37 Question: Some Employees request that additional Federal Withholding Tax dollars be withhold each pay period and some 1099 contractors require a percentage of Federal Withholding Tax be withheld from their pay. How do I handle this problem? Answer: There is a Special Fed Withholding tax that will be either a percent of wages or a fixed amount per payroll period. This tax will be added to the regular Fed WH Tax for reporting. In Current and Year To Date employee records, this amount will be a part of the regular Federal With Holding Tax amount. A flag for Special Fed Withholding Tax (Y/N) and the Amount in either a percentage or a whole number, will be set in the Edit Employee menu selection, on page 1 of the employee record. If the amount is set to less than 1.00 it will be calculated as a percent of current earnings. If the amount is equal to or greater than 1.00 it will be considered a flat amount of additional Federal Withholding Tax for the tax period and will be added into the regular withholding tax applied to that payroll period. The amount of special or backup tax withholding will be shown on Tab 2 for information only. This flag and dollar amounts will be applicable to all payroll employees or contractors. If this applies to a 1099 contractor, the amount will be shown in Box 4 of the 1099 form. The 1099 reporting module has already been modified for H2a employees reclassified to 1099 by a change in Crew number to above 900. Since the special Fed Withholding Tax amount is added to the Pay Period Federal Withholding Tax amount, it will appear in the Tax Deposit report and be reported on W-2 and 1099 forms. Revised July 25,

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