Annual payroll reports are a set of documents that must be completed to be in compliance with law. For us accountants January brings the greatest payroll function of the year; printing the year end payroll reports. These include the W-2’s, W-3 and Form 940. They all must tie to the combined total of the quarterly 941 reports and the deposits made to the Internal Revenue Service.
Federal and state compliance requires the filing of several different reports by certain deadlines. In this lesson I explain the various reports, filing deadlines and best practices to comply with the law. I’ll explain the quarterly set of reports first then the respective annual requirements.
Accrued payroll is a current liability comprised of four sections. The first is the amount of payroll earned by staff and not yet processed or paid. The second is the dollar value of personal time off accumulated for each employee aggregated into one number. The third consists of payroll taxes owed to the respective governmental authorities and the final section comprises the accumulated benefits payable such as health insurance, retirement contributions, and amounts owed to third parties as deductions from the gross payroll.
There are two different forms of compensation provided to employees; direct and indirect. Direct forms of compensation have a multitude of types or methods, from salaries to bonuses. Indirect compensation is primarily the various types of benefits and long term incentives. This article is an introduction to the terminology of compensation.
One of the forms of compensation is direct remuneration for services rendered by the employee. The term used for this is wages. It consists of four different groups of payment from the employer to the employee. They are salary, hourly, commission and bonus types of wages.
Creating a file structure for accounting is critical for the overall success of the business. If properly structured, data retrieval and information access add to the overall value of the company. This article teaches the new business owner how to create a file structure to use with accounting.
The primary goal of creating a file structure is to make data retrieval easy and understandable by just about anyone involved in office operations. Keep in mind that the end user is how the structure is developed. From a simple format to a more complicated structure incorporating the entire office, the file structure should be organized in a systematic approach. First, break down the accounting function into the respective areas of importance. Next, subdivide these areas by accounting cycles. Finally, incorporate the accounting software function and the overall office to end up with a well-organized file structure for the company.
For us accountants January brings the greatest payroll function of the year; printing the year end payroll reports. These include the W-2’s, W-3 and Form 940. They all must tie to the combined total of the quarterly 941 reports and the deposits made to the Internal Revenue Service.
Federal Unemployment Tax Act or FUTA for short is a part of the Internal Revenue Code and is an employer tax on wages paid to employees. It is used to fund unemployment benefits. The tax is paid on the first $7,000 of wages paid to every employee. It is reported via Form 940 https://businessecon.org/resources/. The Form must be filed and all taxes paid by January 31, 2021.
I dread January of every year. I have to spend so much time preparing the year-end payroll reports prior to the January 31 deadline. Not only must your quarterly’s and monthly’s tie together, but it has to match the general ledger at year-end.
