About closing a payroll year

When you complete payroll processing for the year, you need to close it so that you can begin processing payroll for the new year.

Closing payroll at calendar year end and archiving payroll records are separate processes:

  • When you close a payroll year, the program prepares Payroll for a new year (for example, resetting all employee quarter-to-date and year-to-date totals). It does not remove payroll records or create a payroll archive.

  • When you archive payroll, the program removes 5-2-2 Payroll Records for the oldest payroll year and places them in a separate payroll archive. You use the Archive Oldest Payroll Year tab in Database Administration to archive payroll.

Tip: Use the procedures in the year-end checklists to help simplify year-end processing. The checklists are available in the Sage 100 Contractor Year-End Center.

Note: You need to be logged as Company Administrator and, if you use Payroll Security, you need Payroll Admin rights to close a payroll year.

Effects of closing a payroll year

After you close a payroll year, payroll numbers continue in sequence, rather than starting from 1, so that payroll record numbers are unique for a company, even across years.

Closing a payroll year does not affect the accrued vacation, sick, and compensation times in the employee records that you choose to retain. Also, it does not remove payroll records from your current company. (To remove payroll records from the oldest payroll year, you need to use the Archive Oldest Payroll Year tab in Database Administration.)

When you close a payroll year, Sage 100 Contractor creates new ACA records for the new payroll year. It uses the December values from the previous year as defaults for each month of the new year.