941 Payroll Tax

[jnsilva]

Currently running 11.5

My COA was established prior to me taking over and I have noted serveral problems.
Under payroll deduction (liabilities) there are account numbers for the employee deductions for FWh, SS and Medicare etc. I do not see any account numbers for the employer portion.
1. Do I need to establish the employer accounts so I balance with my 941 payout or is this something the system does automatically? If not do they also get established in the same account catagory 22xx?
2. The original transaction for 941 payroll expenses to IRS was set up in an expense account instead of liability, can I void the original check and reissue under the same check number with corrections?
3. Some of these transaction go back to 2010 and the month has been closed. Can these be fixed?

Thank you, Jackie

[NeilZ]

Currently running 11.5

My COA was established prior to me taking over and I have noted serveral problems.
Under payroll deduction (liabilities) there are account numbers for the employee deductions for FWh, SS and Medicare etc. I do not see any account numbers for the employer portion.
1. Do I need to establish the employer accounts so I balance with my 941 payout or is this something the system does automatically? If not do they also get established in the same account catagory 22xx?
2. The original transaction for 941 payroll expenses to IRS was set up in an expense account instead of liability, can I void the original check and reissue under the same check number with corrections?
3. Some of these transaction go back to 2010 and the month has been closed. Can these be fixed?

Thank you, Jackie

1. I'm going to assume that you're using V11.1/11.5.

FWIW ... all payroll deductions, or employer contributions are liabilities. So you do need liability accounts for FITW, Social Security, Medicare.

The employee payroll deduction comes out of the paycheck, so when setting up the payroll item, you'll only see an area for the liability account.

The employer contributions should have two accounts, one to Credit (an expense account) and one to Debit, the same liability account you have for Medicare or Social Security.

2. You can correct this by doing a void on the check, and reissuing it using the same check number. Do this in Payroll so that the system will have the correct data for the 941. Then post everything to Funds Accounting which will then fix that area.

3. (IMHO) I wouldn't worry about anything other than this year. Sure the books are not going to be exactly correct, but both the employee and the taxes have been paid, W2s issued, and its really not worth the hassle. That said, I would create a Letter of Memorandum for the Treasurer's files explaining the problem you caught, and that you have fixed this going forward for 2012 and the future.