Creating Stand-alone Bonus Check

[EllenS]

I need to create a stand-alone "farewell" bonus check for a departing employee. Later in the year, I will also need to create stand-alone Christmas bonus checks for the other employees. I found a post on handling line-items on the bonus paychecks, but not on creating the extra check. Most of the employees are paid monthly. Do I just create an extra check and change the date(s)?

We are currently using version 11.+

[NeilZ]

I need to create a stand-alone "farewell" bonus check for a departing employee. Later in the year, I will also need to create stand-alone Christmas bonus checks for the other employees. I found a post on handling line-items on the bonus paychecks, but not on creating the extra check. Most of the employees are paid monthly. Do I just create an extra check and change the date(s)?

We are currently using version 11.+

My suggestion is to put it in with the normal payroll check, however, if you don't want to do that:

1. Create a Pay item for bonus, add it to every employee, make sure its setup as taxable income, do not enter an amount as it can then be used for all employees.

2. Then process payroll, set the pay period dates to your standard dates, if its the 1st thru the 15th, then enter those starting and ending dates. Make sure you have the checkbox checked on that screen to Suppress specific items from being processed this time only

3. On the Enter Salary Payroll screen, enter the amount of the bonus under the bonus pay item for each employee.

4. On the next screen, the Process Items screen, UNCHECK the normal salary items, along with any voluntary deductions such as insurance, 403(b) contributions, etc.. Then click the NEXT button.

5. The next page, the Verify Payroll page, should show each employee listed with the Bonus amount showing under the GROSS column. If it shows more than the bonus, then go back and verify that every salary item was unchecked in step 3. If you see anything in the Other Deductions column, then go back to step 4, and make sure all voluntary deductions have been unchecked.

As always, I suggest doing a backup before you do anything just in case.