Processing 2012 Payroll year end after loading 2013 payroll tax tables

Variations of this problem have been popping up everywhere, as it often does when changes are made to the payroll tax percentages and limits. I wrote this up to answer one of the forum posts, so I thought I would brush it off and publish it.
Here was the scenario:
The company had downloaded the 2013 payroll tax tables and processed 2013 payroll, but neither closed 2012 payroll nor installed the year end update for 2012.
Now they need to close 2012 payroll and then return to processing 2013 payroll. Here’s what I would do to get back on track.
1.       Download and install the January hotfix of Dynamics GP 2010, this includes the year end tax update (as well as a hot fix). The current build is 11.00.2164. It was released 01/24/2013. Be sure you have a backup, this will require a table update. Backup your forms and reports dictionaries and create package files for all of your modifications.
2.       Open the Payroll Tax Tables window and change your FICAS tax code to a wage limit of $110,100 and a rate of 4.2%
a.       To open the Payroll Tax Tables window follow the instructions below.
b.      Navigate to: Administration | Setup | System | Payroll Tax.

c. Select the FICAS tax code, select the Apply Tax Table item and click the Filing Status button.

d. Select the NA filing status and click the Tables button

e. Edit the table rates and change the But Not Over column to $110,100 and the Tax Rate column to 4.2% and then click the OK button.

3.   Click Save on the Payroll Tax Filing Status window.
4.   Click Save on the Payroll Tax Setup window.
5.   Now, your going to remove the extra Medicare Tax for the high income earners.
a. In the Payroll Tax Setup window select the Tax Code FICAM, Apply Tax Table, and then click the Filing Status button.

b. Select the NA filing status and click the Tables button

c. To remove the second row in the table, place your cursor in the second row, choose Edit from the menu bar and then Delete Row.

d. Now you need to adjust the first row's maximum wage by entering $999,999,999.99 in the But Not Over column. Click OK to save and close the window.

6.   Click Save on the Payroll Tax Filing Status window.
7.   Click Save on the Payroll Tax Setup window.
8. Change the user date to 12/31/2012 (anything in 2012 will do)
9.   Create the year end wage file (close payroll).
10.  Make sure you’re happy with the W-2 amounts.
11.  Load the 2013 tax tables using the Payroll Tax Updates wizard
12.  Check to make sure the FICAS amounts reset to a wage limit of $113,700 and a rate of 6.2%
13.  Check to make sure the FICAM table includes the 2.35% extra for wages over $200,000.00.
14.  Don't forget to set the User Date back to the right date to process 2013 payroll!
That should get you fixed back up.
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

Year end closing Retained Earnings validation

What's this? Two posts in a single day after weeks of silence? Hopefully this will be helpful for someone out there.

This is for those of you who do 'divisional' closings to Retained Earnings. That's where each 'division' has separate balance sheet and income statement accounts. This is a popular technique when clients want to keep several companies in the same database, yet close out each company to its own retained earnings account.

First of all, you can only (out-of-the-box) differentiate according to a single segment of the chart of accounts. So you can't close by the combination of segment 1 AND segment 2. Also, you need to have created an account for each segment whether or not you need it.

Before executing the close, GP searches through the chart of accounts to make sure you do indeed have a separate retained earnings account for each separate 'division'. The surprise to me was how the software determines whether you're good to go. Instead of looking at the account indexes or separate segment definitions, it looks at the Account Number String field in the Account Index table.

I discovered this last year when one of my clients tried to close and couldn't. Earlier in the year we had removed an unused segment from the chart of accounts (more on that later). The Account Number String field still had a trailing dash "-" left over from the deleted segment. So account number 100-4560-090 read in the field as 100-4560-090- . Once we removed the trailing dash from the field, everything closed beautifully. Go figure.

Another related item. The Account Number String field is used by Integration Manager too. When importing account numbers, you have to use the account separator or the integration will fail. Remember when you could just import the string of characters with no account separator? Not anymore. This was changed a couple of versions ago, so everybody who had strings of characters as the source has probably changed the integration by now.

Gee, and here I thought they created that field so we would no longer have to concatenate segments in reporting.

Enjoy those forms 1099 and W-2!

Leslie