The taxes and deductions listed in this article are set to a generic United States format, i.e. Federal Tax, State Tax, Local Tax, Social Security, Booth Renter, Medicare, Health Care, and SEP or Simplified Employee Pension. They can be easily renamed to match your specific needs.
Click the Deductions button.
Select the deductions that aren't needed and delete them by clicking the Delete button.
Click the Add button to add the new deductions.
Type in the new name of the deduction. When entering employee payroll taxes, the names of the payroll tax deduction will be the same for all employees, so it is imperative that the names and fields be consistent and appropriate for all cases.
Click OK.
Repeat Steps c-e for each deduction that you would like to add.
Click OK to return to the Payroll Configuration screen.
Once you have your deduction names entered, you are ready to configure each employee's payroll deductions.
Double-click the box directly underneath the desired employee that is horizontally in-line with the appropriate deduction field, such as Federal Tax.
The Deduction screen will appear.
You may configure the deduction in the following ways:
No deduction: no money is deducted
Fixed amount: a fixed amount of money is deducted
Percentage: a fixed percentage of the total income is deducted
Based on deduction table: select the appropriate deduction table. You can choose to base the deduction value on some percentage of the table value. The default percentage is 100%
You can also base this deduction on either:
Taxable gross pay: bases the deduction on total gross pay minus pre-tax deductions
Gross pay: bases the deduction on the amount of salaries or wages being paid by an employer before any deductions have been taken out.
You can also select if this deduction is a pre-tax item. Marking a deduction as a pre-tax item will adjust the employee’s taxable gross when running payroll, i.e. an employee has a salary of $10,000 and contributes 10% of her gross salary to her 401k plan. In your software you would set up your deduction as shown in the image below. When your software calculates this deduction it will take (Gross Pay) X (Percentage Amount). In this example it would be ($10,000) X (0.10) = $1,000. Thus, the employee’s gross income is $10,000, but her taxable gross income now becomes $10,000 - $1,000 = $9,000. Subsequent deductions, such as State, Federal, Local, Social Security, etc., will be calculated using the employee’s taxable gross which, as stated earlier in this example, would be $9,000. A pre-tax item MUST be based on gross pay and cannot have a pre-deduction amount associated with it.
You can also select the pre-deduction amount. If a pre-deduction amount is used, then the percentage or table deduction will be based on the taxable gross/gross pay minus the pre-deduction amount, i.e. the employee has a salary of $10,000 and has a deduction as illustrated below. When your software calculates this deduction it will take ((Gross Pay) – (Pre-deduction Amount)) X (Percentage Amount). So, that would be ($10,000.00 - $5,000.00) X 0.10 = $500.00.
You can optionally choose when to stop a deduction.
Never: the deduction will happen every pay period
When the YTD gross pay reaches: the deduction will stop when the YTD gross pay reaches the set amount
When the YTD total deduction amount reaches: the deduction will stop when the deduction total reaches the set amount
Repeat Steps 3-9 for each employee and deduction.
Click the OK button when the payroll configuration is complete.
If you do not have any pre-tax deductions set up in the software, gross income and taxable gross income will always be identical. Examples of pre-tax deductions are 401k contributions, pension contributions, and certain health care insurance contributions. Contact your CPA to determine if particular deductions are considered pre-tax items.