Payroll Deductions not Working

[wms7328]

Found a problem with payroll withholding items and employer liability items not processing when employee status is set to "Former Employees".

Had regular employee set up for many years with proper processing of withholdings using tax tables. Employee is not currently employed on regular basis but has been asked to do some special jobs that resulted in pay on an irregular basis. Had set employee to "Former Employee" in payroll and when I processed his last check, none of the normal withholding items processed. If I change employee back to any other classification, monthy, bi-monthly, etc, then all items process correctly. No end of employement date is set, which allows name to show up in the list of employees.

Apparently the payroll module uses the classification of "Former Employees" to decide when to process deductions. Didn't know if this was intended or was a unintended problem. Couldn't find any other item that related to this topic.

[NeilZ]

Found a problem with payroll withholding items and employer liability items not processing when employee status is set to "Former Employees".

Had regular employee set up for many years with proper processing of withholdings using tax tables. Employee is not currently employed on regular basis but has been asked to do some special jobs that resulted in pay on an irregular basis. Had set employee to "Former Employee" in payroll and when I processed his last check, none of the normal withholding items processed. If I change employee back to any other classification, monthy, bi-monthly, etc, then all items process correctly. No end of employement date is set, which allows name to show up in the list of employees.

Apparently the payroll module uses the classification of "Former Employees" to decide when to process deductions. Didn't know if this was intended or was a unintended problem. Couldn't find any other item that related to this topic.

I would open the "Former Employee" pay group in the Maintain Pay Groups module. I suspect that it has a pay period of Miscellaneous. According to the help, the pay periods default to:

♦ Weekly. Receives 52 checks per year, once a week.
♦ Biweekly. Receives 26 checks per year, every other week.
♦ Semi-monthly. Receives 24 checks per year, such as the first and fifteenth of each month.
♦ Monthly. Receives 12 checks per year, once a month.
♦ Miscellaneous. This is the option to use for None of the above. You are required to manually enter a number of checks per year when this option is selected.

It may be that it is set to 1 or even zero; something like that. The 'pay periods' are used to calculate tax items, which govern normal withholding deductions.

[wms7328]

Thanks for the suggestion. The "Former Employees" pay group does have zero listed for number of checks. However, you don't seem to be able to change the settings for this group, the selection boxes are grayed out. Apparently, it was intended for this group not to be changed. No problem, as long as everyone knows that for this pay group, the deductions are not going to process. Might be a better idea not to even show the employees in this group as possible selections when you process payroll. That way, you would be forced to put them in a different pay group to process a check.

[NeilZ]

Thanks for the suggestion. The "Former Employees" pay group does have zero listed for number of checks. However, you don't seem to be able to change the settings for this group, the selection boxes are grayed out. Apparently, it was intended for this group not to be changed. No problem, as long as everyone knows that for this pay group, the deductions are not going to process. Might be a better idea not to even show the employees in this group as possible selections when you process payroll. That way, you would be forced to put them in a different pay group to process a check.

I was able to change the number of checks for the Pay Group of "Former Employees" without a problem. If the Pay Period is listed as Miscellaneous, you should be able to change the number of checks.

Not sure what you mean about 'not showing employees. You have the option to select which pay group you're going to use to process payroll, so if you select current employees, anyone in the 'former' group will not appear.

Just to clarify for all, I'm talking about V11 here.

[tborgal]

Neil,
I am not sure how you were able to change the settings in the Former Employee group. Mine is completely grayed out. What I did was create my own group for employees who no longer are on the regular payroll. It may have been a carry over from a previous version. You can then set that group to Miscellaneous and enter the number of checks per year. You will of course need to assign the employee to the new group.

[NeilZ]

Neil,
I am not sure how you were able to change the settings in the Former Employee group. Mine is completely grayed out. What I did was create my own group for employees who no longer are on the regular payroll. It may have been a carry over from a previous version. You can then set that group to Miscellaneous and enter the number of checks per year. You will of course need to assign the employee to the new group.

Tom,

All I know is that I can do it. I have full Admin privilages, and my test system is running on a copy of the church database which has people listed under that group. Go figure !

Neil

[tborgal]

I even logged in as system admin and could not change anything in the Former Employee group.

[NeilZ]

I even logged in as system admin and could not change anything in the Former Employee group.

And you're on v11.1 ??

[tborgal]

Yes I am. With most recent Maint. Release.

[wms7328]

I have the same situation as the other guys. Even if I log in as system administrator, I can't change anything under the pay group of "Former Employees". As I remember when we upgraded to V11, this employee group was already defined. I didn't add this group on my own. Anyway, no big deal as long as everyone knows that using this group will result in deductions not being included. I'm using a Misc. pay group for employees that are not paid regularly, and that works fine.

Just as a side note, I know that for Federal, State and Local taxes that the number of checks per year will effect the deduction amount. However, for Social Security and Medicare, they are just straight percentages of income for that pay period, so don't see why the number of paychecks would make a difference for those. So even with paychecks per year set to zero, it would appear these two deductions should process as long as you have them selected to process.

[NeilZ]

I believe the system expects at least one paycheck on a group for anything to process.