Sage 100

Washington State Labor and Industries Tax: Anyone have any experience with setting this up in Sage 100? My client is telling me that the tax is withheld from the employee paycheck, and they pay a certain amount per hour. I thought it could be handled in deduction maintenance, but he's telling me that it won't work because it ""doesn't show up on the W-2."" Thanks in advance.

Wait - he WANTS it to be on the W2 or he DOESN'T? Either way, you control which deductions print on the W2.

We use deductions for L&I to allow for employer accrual as well as employee deduction. The attached are deduction screen samples. WA state allows a specific hourly rate to be deducted from employee checks. There can be many rates per company depending on type of business such as construction. This has nothing to do with the W-2 - only reported to the state.

For our clients, we use the Workman's Compensation Maintenance to create codes for each L&I rate and enter the whole amount for the rate. This will debit an L&I Tax expense account and credit an L&I Tax liability account. The deduction from the employee check is an option for the employer. For those that do deduct from the employees check, we use a regular voluntary deduction as shown by @DebbieBeach, but we have it reduce the employers L&I Tax expense instead of add to the liability. Results are basically the same. The workman's comp code is adjustable by earnings line so it works well for people who work in more than one L&I category, especially if they don't deduct from the employee's check. There is no built in way to marry the voluntary deduction codes to a WC code so the employee's portion has to be handled manually if the employee works in more than one L&I category. Because the WC code is set on each line in payroll data entry, if it is set accurately, the employer liability is going to be accurate. If someone doesn't handle the voluntary deductions correctly, it only affects the employers expense.

@BethBowers: That's what I tried to tell him, but he insisted that it didn't show up. He's one of those that it doesn't make sense to fight, but just say, ""Whatever you say."" @DebbieBeach and @JohnBroadfoot: Very helpful information. I don't deal with Washington clients too often, and payroll in Washington even less. I'll pass those ideas on and see how it goes. Thanks again.