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  • 1.  YE Holiday Bonus

    Posted 10-13-2020 20:46
    Can you believe it that the big three holidays are fast approaching?  And this means that companies are going to give bonuses that do not have FIT / SIT withheld but will be grossed up for FICA/Medicare.

    Since nearly all of my clients are running the new v2.2 payroll this year, I am trying to determine what the best practice might be for importing via VI.

    1)  Set up an earnings code with a supplemental tax schedule
    2)  Gross up the bonus pay for FICA/MEDICARE.
    3)  ?????

    What are others doing for the FIT/SIT tax?  I don't believe you can set up supplemental (Tax rule -800051) tax to calculate zero.  What about tax rule -000000 (No Taxes)?  Would this classify the earnings properly (taxable) but just calculate zero FIT/SIT???  Or should I create a VI to import zero FIT/SIT taxes using tax rule -800051?

    Thanks in advance.

    ------------------------------
    Jeff Schwenk
    FORMER 90M Board Member
    Bottomline Software, Inc.
    Waynesboro VA
    540-221-4444
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: YE Holiday Bonus

    Posted 11-20-2020 10:59
    Any thoughts on this?  If you use the supplemental pay tax code (-800051), you get the fit/sit supplemental tax rate (not desired outcome).  If you use the nontaxable code (-000000), you get zero taxes.  Also not the desired outcome.

    Looking like a second import to reset fit/sit to zero after calculating or just select manual taxes and import the fica/medicare during the initial import.

    ------------------------------
    Jeff Schwenk
    FORMER 90M Board Member
    Bottomline Software, Inc.
    Waynesboro VA
    540-221-4444
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: YE Holiday Bonus

    Posted 11-20-2020 11:34

    I don't know that there is a tax rule that allows you to not calculate the withholding taxes, and yet reports those wages as taxable.  I've asked for it, and maybe it is there now – but it would be fabulous if they would add that rule.

     

    Barring us finding a rule that does work, I don't think you should do an import for FICA/Medicare because of two reasons:  1) if the employee is over or nearing the FICA limit, you might be over-withholding FICA, and 2) likewise, if they're approaching or over the $200,000 Medicare supplemental, you might be under-withholding Medicare.  I've always grossed up the amount to cover FICA/Medicare (taking into account Employees who are just under or over the FICA limit, plus those who are at or nearing the $200k Medicare supplemental), let the system calculate the taxes, and then zero'd out the two Withholding taxes.  If only part of the bonus puts them over either the FICA limit, or only part of the bonus is applicable to the $200k supplemental for Medicare, the system will calculate that correctly.  And you can easily see which employees you'll need to change the Gross Up Amount for based on either the FICA limit or the Supplemental kicking in.

     

    More "sophisticated" payroll systems allow for a gross-up automatically.  You tell the system what you want the net check to be, and whether or not Federal and State Withholding is withheld.   I asked Sage when they were re-writing the software if they would include that, but alas, no.

     

    Sue Bennett | President

    Bennett/Porter & Associates, Inc.

    P. 503 620 3484 | F. 503 620 2765

    12559 SW 69th Ave | Portland, OR  97223

    Email address | www.benpor.com

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  • 4.  RE: YE Holiday Bonus

    Posted 11-20-2020 12:08
    @Sue Bennett - While we are isolating with our household family member ​next Thursday, we can always dream happy thoughts about how Sage could really improve the PR.  But I think they have diverted those funds to Intacct tech support while they suck the life out of Sage 100.....

    A tax rule would be a nice improvement (how hard can it be) and the feature to gross up the earnings is nearly a "doobie" pipe dream.......

    My current thought is to gross up the earnings to cover the fica/medicare.  Run the tax calculation and then run a second import to zero out FIT/SIT.  Sound messy and I am not certain it is doable yet.  Or do the import and manually zero out the taxes.  Either way, it is a PITA!

    ------------------------------
    Jeff Schwenk
    FORMER 90M Board Member
    Bottomline Software, Inc.
    Waynesboro VA
    540-221-4444
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: YE Holiday Bonus

    Posted 12-03-2020 16:44
      |   view attached
    Here is an epilogue to my bonus import situation.  Since it was the first time I imported grossed up bonus payments with only Fica/Medicare, there was some trial and error but in the end, I think it went as smoothly as can be expected.

    To begin, the client provided a spreadsheet with 238 employees receiving a stocking stuffer.  The pay was grossed up and with columns for Fica/Medicare.  I created a PR Bonus import (attached) which worked.  But as Sue pointed out above, you have to be careful if you have employees close to maxing out (or maxed out) on the Fica.  To quickly determine any issues, I created an Excel query to pull data out of the PR_PayrollTaxDetail table (created for this PR).  I was only interested in the FEDERAL tax record and only the columns pertaining to Employee/Employer Fica/Medicare (below).  Inserted a couple columns and created a formula to determine any difference between the manual employee number and the calculated employer number.  There were five.  Modifed the import sheet for those five and reimported.  Life is good! 

    I am sure you could modify the import to work with gift cards as is another thread on this topic.



    ------------------------------
    Jeff Schwenk
    FORMER 90M Board Member
    Bottomline Software, Inc.
    Waynesboro VA
    540-221-4444
    ------------------------------

    Attachment(s)

    EXP
    v2.20.3 PR Bonus.EXP   90 KB 1 version