Sage 100

Does anyone know if there will be the usual release of the 2014 941 for supported versions or if clients will be required to use Aatrix? Thanks! Pam

I don't think they will any longer As of Tax Filing Year 2014, customers will be able to print and/or eFile 250+ signature ready State and Federal tax forms from within the Sage 100 ERP integration to State and Federal eFiling and Reporting, powered by Aatrix, additional fees apply for eFiling services only.

No more Sage 100 module printable W2, 1099, 941 or mag media module after this filing season. I believe those forms can be printed through Aatrix without cost but that filing them electronically requires a fee. Also to use Aatrix I believe you need to have the CURRENT Sage 100 account number in the system. This can be tricky because in some cases the old registration keys might still be in a customer system.

Actually, once you get used to Aatrix, you will wonder why you didn't use it earlier. Many, many more forms to pick and print. I love the 940 form. W-2's are just lock, load and print. No hair loss due to alignment issues. Plus you can print directly to PDF for archiving. No tears shed hear over the loss of the Sage forms. There is only additional charges if you have Aatrix do the work.

Jeff, I have to disagree just a bit related to W-2's, though it could be that we aren't adequately trained with Aatrix. If you have local taxes and want them to print on the W-2 form there is a lot of manual work or at least that has been our experience. Our clients do really like the forms but we've also had a lot of feedback with clients not happy that there are fees now for electronic filing. If anyone has a silver bullet on managing how local's will print, I'd love to know. Thanks to everyone for their comments, it is greatly appreciated!

We have local taxes here in Indiana, and Aatrix handles those. There are some settings in tax table maintenance that need to be addressed - once these fields are set properly then Aatrix knows how to handle them on the W-2 forms. attached is a screen shot in tax table maintenance of the two fields - hopefully that will point you in the right direction or if you have questions feel free to ask or e-mail me.

@PamScott - No worries on disagreeing. What works well for one user is a PITA for another. Fortunately, I have no users with local income tax Aatrix issues though this will change next year. Let's hope and pray that with the extra resources freed up at Sage by not having to support the PR reporting issues, that these resource(s?) will be used to debug the remaining issues with PR and Aatrix. I did have a client last year pioneer the Aatrix electronic reporting (w-2 distribution) only to encounter nothing but arrows in the process. She was quite livid over her entire experience. On a positive note, one client today used Aatrix to print their w-2's only to discover through their validation process that they had under withheld Fica/Medicare during the first quarter (didn't install the 2013TTU nor the 1st quarter 941 fix, all prior to my coming on board). Sage would never have caught this issue. Over all, I see the transition that something useful can happen with change, even at Sage.....

@DavidOverholt I believe that for states that require locals to be reported, like Indiana, it's okay. (I know that Sage PR has the proper local tax codes for IN built in.) Even though in some states it's not required, Sage prints locals on W-2's and clients and their employees are in the habit of seeing this information and are insisting that it continue to print. In those instances, you have to manually bring over the information and it can be quite time consuming. I know we could tell our clients just to live with it, but change can be hard at times and though you gain a lot with Aatrix, this feels like a reduction in functionality for some.

@PamScott there's a Sage KB entry on your issue - basically it advises a manual workaround. Where I've found Aatrix to be very helpful is with Sage 100 ERP 4.3 customers who aren't sure if they installed the IRD in prior years and don't have access to this years' IRD. I did one today and it was a lot easier than trying to figure out which of the prior half dozen IRD had or had not been installed. BTW I am not including install and configure of Aatrix as being under support. I charge a flat fee which is nominal but covers the time I know I have to spend searching for disks, remote connecting, manually installing the first update (which errors out) then installing the second update automatically. Then instructing the customer on how to use Aatrix.

@wayne Are you telling me that attic still works in 4.3? I should have tried that at the client where I upgraded their data to 4.5 on my local machine so they could efile. I made the mistake of assuming it would not work

@DavidOverholt - Don't beat yourself up. Isn't the client making the mistake by not upgrading???

Aatrix does work on 4.3. I did one yesterday. I'm not sure how many versions it will go back. My guess is that it might go pretty far since nothing material seems to change in payroll.

Thanks @WayneSchulz and @JeffSchwenk I won't beat myself up too much; I usually take the approach of trying it even if Sage does not officially support it, but in this case I didn't for whatever reason.

Fyi, from the 941 page in the Sage Portal: **941 Form Changes for 2014** Reminder: As previously announced, payroll tax forms are now provided by Aatrix. In order to print &/or eFile the 2014 941 Form, please access Federal eFiling and Reporting, located under the Payroll > Period End menu. For eFiling and Reporting installation information, please click https://support.na.sage.com/selfservice/viewdocument.do;jsessionid=5F26E156C5AAD588EB653B78CB5EF48D.worker1e?noCount=true&externalId=18851&sliceId=1&cmd=displayKC&dialogID=35810&docType=kc&isLoadPublishedVer=&stateId=35811&docTypeID=DT_Article&ViewedDocsListHelper=com.kanisa.apps.common.BaseViewedDocsListHelperImpl.