How is FICA/S wages and withholding calculated?

It’s that time of year again! W-2s are due out early next week and we are just now looking at the numbers. You know who you are!

Have you ever noticed a difference between the Social Security Wages and withholding reported on the Form W-2 and the amounts in the Employee Summary record?

Understanding the relationships between the components listed below can be challenging. This post intends to clarify the inter-relationship between these items and the amounts recorded as Social Security wages and Social Security tax withheld.

Below are the components I discuss:

• The Year-end Wage Report
• The W-2 Validation Report
• The amounts displayed in the Edit W-2 window
• The amounts that print on the W-2
• The amounts that print on the W-3

Payroll Year-end close

1. When the year is closed the year-end wage file is created. The system captures the actual amounts from the employee summary record. The FICA limit and percentage in effect when the year-end wage file is created are also captured.

2. The Year-end Wage Report reads from the year-end wage file, so it shows the actual amounts withheld regardless of the limits

3. The Validation Report does two things

a. Compares the FICA wages recorded in the year-end wage file to the FICA wage limit that was captured when the year-end wage file was created

b. Calculates what FICA withholding should have been in accordance with the FICA wage limit and percentage captured when the year-end wage file was created

c. Any differences are reported on the Validation Report

4. The W-2 form that appears in the Edit W-2 window is reading the year-end wage file, so it shows the actual amounts withheld

5. The amount that appears in the Social Security Wages W-2 box is the lessor of:

a. The Social Security Wages from the year-end wage file or,

b. The FICA limit captured when the year-end wage file was created.

6. The amount that appears in the Social Security Withheld W-2 box is the lessor of:

a. The amount actually withheld as captured in the year-end wage file or,

b. The amount of the FICA limit in the year-end wage file times the FICA % captured in the year-end wage file. This amount is calculated without regard to the amount recorded in the year-end wage file as Social Security wages.

7. The amounts appearing on the W-3 are the sum of the amounts on the W-2s. The W-3 amounts are not the same as the Year-End wage report amounts.

Have fun with it!
Until next post!

v 9.00.0386 Upgrade Path to GP2010 Gone

Microsoft announced yesterday that currently there is NO upgrade path to GP2010 from version 9.00.0386 (2010 Canadian Payroll Year End Update & 2011 Round 2 Tax Update KB 2492902) until the release of the 2010 Canadian Payroll Year End Update & 2011 Round 2 Tax Update for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010.

Click HERE to get the latest update document.

Click HERE to download the latest patch for Microsoft Dynamics GP2010.

Payroll Tax Round 2 for GP2010 for year 2011

Microsoft announced that the much anticipated Round 2 for GP2010 is out. The update filename is MicrosoftDynamicsGP11-KB2477921-ENU.msp (for U.S. English).

Read about it here: https://mbs.microsoft.com/partnersource/downloads/taxupdates/usgptu10.htm?printpage=false

The Tax Tables themselves are here: TX.cab Round 2

Here is an excerpt from the U.S. 2011 January Payroll Tax Update For Microsoft Dynamics ® GP Round 2

“Installation is divided into two portions: the tax table update and the program code update. Installing the tax table update is required for all states included in the Round 2 update.

To install the tax table update:

You can run the tax update installation from any workstation. The update installs payroll tax table data on the server computer where your existing Microsoft Dynamics GP application data is located. You need to install the tax table update only once.

To install the program code update:

You need to install the update on the server as well as every workstation that runs Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Installation instructions vary, depending on the release you are using. Follow instructions for the release you are using:

Installing the program code update for Release 9.0 (links to a different part of the document)

Installing the program code update for Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 or Release 10.0 (links to a different part of the document)

Before you begin, ask all Microsoft Dynamics GP users to exit the application until the update is complete. Exit all other applications, turn off the screen saver, and back up important data (including Forms.dic, Reports.dic, and Dynamics.vba if they exist) before you proceed with the installation.

Note: The Payroll Update Engine, which is used to install the tax table update, is not supported on 64-bit operating systems when running Release 9.0, or Release 10.0 prior to Service Pack 3. For more information, refer to the Knowledge Base article at

https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;947191

(https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/support/downloads/servicepacks or https://mbs.microsoft.com/customersource/support/downloads/taxupdates/.

Microsoft Dynamics GP 10.0:

The update filenames are:

MicrosoftDynamicsGP-KB2477916-v10-ENU.exe (for U.S. English) and

MicrosoftDynamicsGP-KB2477917-v10-ESLA.exe (for Latin American Spanish).

Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010:

The update filename is MicrosoftDynamicsGP11-KB2477921-ENU.msp (for U.S. English) and

MicrosoftDynamicsGP11-KB2477922-ENU.msp (for Latin American Spanish).

The file incorporates all previous code updates, including Microsoft Dynamics GP 2010 and Release 10.0 Service Pack 5, the 2010 U.S. Payroll year-end update, and all recent hotfixes. If you are using Canadian Payroll, it also includes the Canadian 2010 Year-End Update/2011 Tax Update, as well as all previous Canadian Payroll tax updates.”

Stay tuned for upgrade path changes.

Until next post!

Change the Date at Midnight without the Dialog

A friend asked me recently how to get the date to advance if you are using the .ini switch SuppressChangeDateDialog=TRUE.

First, let me explain the .ini switch. If GP is open overnight, a dialog displays at midnight asking you if you want to advance the date.

Many firms run integrations overnight and this dialog displaying in the middle of an integration will cause it to crash. To keep the dialog from presenting, the ‘SuppressChangeDateDialog’ .ini switch was developed. If this switch is included in your dex.ini file, the date dialog will not be presented and therefore the integration will not crash.

A byproduct of the .ini switch is that the date does not automatically advance. So, we have a dilemma. In order to force the date to advance while suppressing the Change Date dialog, a tool was developed by Microsoft (then Great Plains). The tool is known as the ‘Update User Date’ utility. There is no charge for it, but you have to ask Tech Support in order to get it.

For versions GP 2010 and beyond, this utility is included as one of the free tools in the Professional Services Tools Library. Every GP installation should include this module because so many free tools are included. You can find the Update User Date utility in the upper left-hand corner of the Professional Services Tools Library window. In order to turn the functionality ‘on’ simply check the box to the left of the radio button.

I hope this helps you with your integrations.

Until next post!

Leslie

Check those 1099s! You may have more than you bargained for!

Version 10 introduced ‘date sensitive’ 1099 reporting. This allowed us to print 1099s for a year without regard to the actual closing date for that year. Prior to this, if you didn’t close A/P right at the year end, it was not possible to cut off payables for the purpose of accumulating 1099 amounts.

The introduction of this new feature brought with it a new ‘gotcha’ in the world of 1099 reporting. If you have a vendor incorrectly marked as a 1099 vendor during the year (and amounts are paid to the vendor in excess of the thresholds), a 1099 will be issued for that vendor even after you change the setting to ‘Not a 1099 Vendor’. In order to prevent the Form 1099 from printing, you need to zero out all of the 1099 amounts recorded in the 1099 Details window. (Purchasing Area Page > Cards Content Pane >1099 Details.)

In order to see the 1099 Details for a vendor, first mark them as a 1099 vendor. After the vendor is marked, remove any amounts from the 1099 Amount column in the 1099 Details window. Don’t forget to reset the 1099 option after clearing out the balances. Once the balances are cleared, the 1099 will no longer print for this vendor. Marking the vendor as ‘Not a 1099 Vendor’ is no longer sufficient to cause the 1099 not to print.

This was an issue in version 10 and continues to be an issue with version 2010.

Until next post!

Leslie