Methods for entering historical payroll records

When setting up payroll, it is important to provide the historical payroll information for the current calendar year. The historical information is necessary to correctly calculate taxes such as Social Security, as well as to provide data for payroll reports summarizing, for example, W-2 forms.

Choose from four methods for entering the payroll history. The first method is the quickest way to enter the historical data, and each successive method is more complex. Before selecting a method, consider the importance of your payroll data. The more data you enter now, the greater the level of detail will be later on when you need information.

When the payroll data has posted to the general ledger in your previous system, the ledger account balances already include payroll costs. Assign payroll type 4-Startup to the historical payroll records.

If you have payroll data that is not posted to the general ledger in your previous system, enter separate records for the unposted data. Assign those records payroll type 3-Hand Computed and post them. Later, when entering the ledger account balances, be sure the ledger balances do not include the payroll data assigned payroll type 3-Hand Computed. The ledger account balances must accurately reflect the payroll records that have not been posted.

If you have an Add/Deduct or Add to Gross taxable item, then go to the 5-3-7 Payroll Audit window and run the repair to read taxable wages correctly.

Method 1

Enter a single payroll record for each employee that contains the year-to-date totals. If you are in mid-quarter, you will not be able to print the 941 and other quarterly payroll reports.

Method 2

Enter a record for each payroll quarter for each employee. You can generate more reports than in the first method, including some quarterly reports at the end of the current quarter.

The 941 report for the current quarter shows a liability on a single day, representing the startup data. You must manually adjust the data in the report from the beginning of the quarter to the point when you began to process payroll in Sage 100 Contractor.

Method 3

Enter a record for each employee in each of the prior payroll quarters. Then in the current quarter, enter an individual payroll record for each paycheck.

Reports contain the complete payroll data for the current payroll quarter. This is the recommended method.

Method 4

Enter each individual payroll record for every employee. This method is practical only when there are a few employees or you are starting up during the first quarter of the calendar year.