Sage 100

I am reading the Sage guide to eFiling and it appears that under Aatrix / eFiling you can print W2 forms even after the payroll year has been closed. Can anyone verify this? Is it necessary any longer for users to save a copy of their full year payroll prior to starting the new year? I suspect most users will continue doing so but am wondering if it's still a mandatory step if the user hasn't printed W2 forms.

Here's the thing that concerns me - when you are printing W2s, you also need data that comes from the PR1 file (name/address, pension check box, etc) and from the PR4 file (totals of 401K, etc). If you don't make a backup, you lose all of that information.

Page 48 of the eFiling guide talks about PR_41 being populated from PR1 and PR3 during year end processing - https://www.dropbox.com/s/412debdm3rg02k5/Sage_100_ERP_eFiling_Guide_YE2014%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0 I don't trust Sage's explanation because you know who will be left holding the bag if there's a problem....

A client made a copy company today and then tried to print W-2s from Aatrix using the copy company but got error message that files were missing. She copied the Aatrix files manually and it printed fine. Not sure if anyone else has run into this.

Another thing that is confusing is that Sage's instructions with the 2015 TTU say to print W-2s before installing the TTU which doesn't seem consistent with the Aatrix instructions.

Install the TTU or the IRD?.... Also I think that Aatrix has it's own tax table anyways.

Sage instructions say to install IRD before printing W-2s and 20155 TTU after printing the W-2s. This is not practical because many clients do first payroll of 2015 before printing W-2s.

Just saw this post on Sage City, which indicates you do need to have 2014 tax tables installed for W2 purposes: http://sagecity.na.sage.com/support_communities/sage100_erp/f/245/t/81164.aspx

I wonder how Sage keeps a straight face describing the set of exact circumstances needed to process W2 forms at year end.

From Sage City / Sage: Sorry about any confusion that has been caused, nothing has changed regarding the way tax tables affect the Payroll module. The tax table update rates and limits will not affect amounts that print on W2s BUT they will affect amounts on Payroll reports (i.e. Quarterly Tax Report, Quarterly Governmental Report). If you change your State Unemployment rate to reflect your 2015 tax rate that new 2015 tax rate will pull into applicable eFIling forms and will need to manually be changed to your 2014 UI tax rate when printing 2014 forms (if applicable). The recommended way is to print 2014 W2s before installing the 2015-Q1 TTU and processing 2015 payroll. If that is not possible because of pay cycle ending dates then the recommended way would be the same as it has always been: Install the 2014 IRD (**this step does not need to be done first, but the 2014 IRD must be installed before processing 2014 W2s) Print applicable Payroll reports (i.e. Quarterly Tax Report, Quarterly Governmental Report) Verify Years to Retain eFiling History is set appropriately and verify Retain Perpetual History is selected in Payroll Options Make a copy company (**this company code will be used if you dont have time to print quarterly reports before closing year end or if any adjustments need to be entered for payroll dated in 2014). In Live Company Code, close the year using Period End Processing After Year-end Processing is completed, install the latest Tax Table Update (2015-Q1 TTU) and verify the accuracy of your state(s)unemployment Tax Rates for each company in Tax Table Maintenance before processing the next quarter's Payroll. Process 2015 Payroll After reconciling QTD & YTD amounts and ready to print 2014 W2s, install the 2014-Q3 TTU and change the State(s) UI to reflect the 2014 UI tax rate. Print the 2014 W2/W3, 941 and 940 forms and verify accuracy Install 2015-Q1 TTU and verify State(s) UI rate reflect your 2015 UI tax rate

Thanks Wayne that's very very helpful.