Payroll With holding

[tryals]

I am running Power Church Plus 11 on Windows 8. I have set up our payroll and tax tables. I understand the with holding are imported into Fund Accounting and that the gross amount of the check reflects on the income and expense statement. I then write a check for our Payroll taxes and post it to a payroll tax expense account. I see on the report at the end of the month where I pay my 941 that its like the tax amount is deducted twice. How can I avoid this? I feel like the deductions that are withheld in the payroll screen are held somewhere and that's the account I need to use when posting my check for the taxes but I can't find it. Please help!!!

[NeilZ]

I am running Power Church Plus 11 on Windows 8. I have set up our payroll and tax tables. I understand the with holding are imported into Fund Accounting and that the gross amount of the check reflects on the income and expense statement. I then write a check for our Payroll taxes and post it to a payroll tax expense account. I see on the report at the end of the month where I pay my 941 that its like the tax amount is deducted twice. How can I avoid this? I feel like the deductions that are withheld in the payroll screen are held somewhere and that's the account I need to use when posting my check for the taxes but I can't find it. Please help!!!

OK ... the 941 reflects two types of withholding: Federal Income tax (FITW), and Social Security/Medicare (SSI/M).

If you have the FITW Payroll Item setup properly, the Fund Accounting account listed there is a liability account. All withheld taxes go to that account, and that account should be used when creating your payment.

For the Employee SSI and Medicare Payroll Item the account should also be liability accounts, one for SSI and one for Medicare.

These liability accounts are usually setup by default when you start using the Accounting module, and should be selected when setting up the Payroll module.

For the Employer SSI and Medicare Payroll Items, there should be TWO accounts listed for each: a liability account and an expense account.

The Liability accounts should be the same liability accounts used on the employee SSI and Medicare Payroll Items. However, the expense account listed on them should be the same Payroll Taxes expense account. Again, this account is created by default, and then should be selected when setting up the Payroll module.

So, for example:

If you have the FITW liability account of 01-2215-000, a Social Security liability account of 01-2217-000, a Medicate liability account of 01-2218-000, and a payroll taxes expense account of 01-5140-000

When payroll is run, the employee part of the taxes are deducted from his salary and put in the liability accounts for each individual tax, FITW in 01-2215-000, SSI in 01-2217-000, and Medicare in 01-2217-000. The employer tax portion of SSI & Medicare are calculated and deducted from the expense account of 01-5140-00 and placed in the appropriate liability account for SSI & Medicare.

When you post, all the funds are distributed as required.

Now, when you PAY the taxes, you have the option of using the Create Accounts Payable Entries for Deductions function of payroll, which will show all the dates each deduction was made. You select the payroll dates shown for the period you're paying taxes on, and the system will either create an Invoice in Accounts Payable so you can write a paper check, or a Manual Check if you're writing checks by hand, or paying your taxes online using EFTPS. This invoice or manual check will have the proper liability accounts for FITW, SSI and Medicare selected and amounts entered in the debit column.

However, you may not wish to use that function, and want to create the Invoice by hand. So you would select the FITW, SSI & Medicare liability accounts for the amounts you need to pay.

Now, all this is a long winded way of saying that, when you're manually creating the Invoice to pay the federal taxes, you are NOT using the correct debit account. You should be accessing the individual liability accounts for the payment as the system has already transferred the funds from the Employer Payroll Taxes expense account.

Hope this helps.