Balancing payroll

For information on the reports you can use to balance payroll now and throughout the year, see Tools for payroll balancing.

This is a list of inquiries and reports you can use to balance your year end data. The reports you run are determined by the level of detail you want to examine. As you conduct the verification, begin with high-level data such as the company level or year-to-date summaries. If you find problems, narrow the search by pulling reports for smaller organizational levels, for example, for the department rather than the company or process level.

You can compare these inquiries and reports to verify gross wages, taxable wages, deduction amounts. To meet different balancing needs, you can create the reports using different parameters. For example, you can run Payment Detail Listing (PR260) for specific process levels, user levels, employee ranges, date ranges, payment types, sort options, and summary options.

Quarterly Payment Inquiry (PR50.1)

Use Quarterly Payment Inquiry (PR50.1) to inquire on employee payment information for a specific payroll year and quarter. This form displays the employee name, number, SSN, tax state, and gross pay, and Federal, State, Social Security, and Medicare taxable wages, excess wages, and weeks worked.

941 Information (PR87.1)

Use 941 Information (PR87.1) to specify miscellaneous information needed for Form 941.

Payment Detail Listing (PR260)

Run Payment Detail Listing (PR260) to produce a listing of payments that meet the parameters you selected. This listing includes the pay summary group amount, deduction amount, taxable wages, and gross and net pay. Use the parameters on this report to meet your balancing needs.

Compare Payment Detail Listing (PR260) totals with:

Year-To-Date-Payment Report (PR265)
Employee Wage Report (PR270)
Deduction Report (PR275)
Employee Deduction Report (PR276)
Quarterly Report (PR290)
Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)
US Balancing Report (PR294)
W-2 Form Printing (PR297)
EFW2 File Creation (PR299)

Payment Detail Listing by Report Entity (PR261)

Run Payment Detail Listing by Report Entity (PR261) to view historical deduction and earnings information and totals by report entity. You use this report to balance totals from the payment detail files to the quarterly files.

You can run this report for a date range, for an employee group or specific employees, or specific payment types. You can optionally run to include payment detail and create a CSV output file.

The report options are detail by employee, summary by employee totals by report entity. PR261 is similar to PR260, but the earnings and deductions are reported by report entity. In addition, ACH is not included on the report and totals are not provided by common currencies.

Taxable Wage CSV (PR262)

Run Taxable Wage CSV (PR262) to create a CSV file with earnings, deductions, and payment data. This data can be used to recalculate taxable wages and balance the calculated amount to the actual payment data by tax authority.

Note: The CSV file created with PR262 is similar to CSV file created with Payroll Register (PR141). However the pretax amounts shown in this file are the full wage and deduction amounts that were calculated in the Payroll application that may have affected taxable wages for each authority.

Year-To-Date Payment Report (PR265)

Run Year-To-Date-Payment Report (PR265) to report month-to-date, quarter-to-date, and year-to-date gross and net pay for employees who meet the report parameters.

Compare the company totals with Payment Detail Listing (PR260) company totals.

Quarterly Tax Balancing Report (PR266)

If you are a US employer, run Quarterly Tax Balancing Report (PR266) to reconcile your summary (QTD) and detail (PYD) files. Any Discrepancies in taxable wages and taxes are reported. When you run PR266, the application creates a quarterly/year-to-date balancing report that displays each quarterly-to-date and year-to-date tax and taxable wage totals from the Pay Deduction detail files and quarterly-to-date and year-to-date tax and taxable wage totals from the Quarterly Deduction files and compare to find differences.

Employee Wage Report (PR270)

Run Employee Wage Report (PR270) to display employee wage information that includes pay summary groups, hours worked, and wage totals. This report does not show wage information by payment. Run this report to identify wage information for specific pay classes or pay summary groups.

Compare Employee Wage Report (PR270) totals with Payment Detail Listing (PR260) totals.

Deduction Report (PR275)

Run Deduction Report (PR275) to display amounts taken for a deduction, a range of employees, or a date range.

Compare the report with:

Payment Detail Listing (PR260)
Quarterly Report (PR290)
Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)
US Balancing Report (PR294)
W-2 Form Printing (PR297)
EFW2 File Creation (PR299)

Employee Deduction Report (PR276)

Run Employee Deduction Report (PR276) to display deduction amounts and taxable wages for deductions. This report does not display deduction information by payment.

Compare PR276 totals with:

Payment Detail Listing (PR260)
Quarterly Report (PR290)
Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)
US Balancing Report (PR294)
W-2 Form Printing (PR297)
EFW2 File Creation (PR299)

Quarterly Federal Tax Return (PR287)

Run Quarterly Federal Tax Return (PR287) to print a listing that contains the quarterly totals for federal Form 941 and the daily tax liability for Form 941 Schedule B - Daily Tax Liability.

Quarterly Report (PR290)

Run Quarterly Report (PR290) to produce a report by tax authority that lists employees who have deductions associated with that tax authority. This report includes quarterly and year-to-date taxable wages and tax amounts for a particular quarter.

Compare the Quarterly Report with:

Payment Detail Listing (PR260)
Deduction Report (PR275)
Employee Deduction Report (PR276)
Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)
US Balancing Report (PR294)

Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)

Run Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291) to produce data for the continuation sheets that are attached to state quarterly unemployment remittance forms. You can select options that let you include FICA taxable wages, total wages, taxable wages, excess wages, and weeks worked. You can run this report using the Detail, Summary, and Negative Wage options and then use the resulting reports to balance before printing continuation forms.

Compare the Unemployment Continuation Form totals with the US Balancing Report (PR294).

US Balancing Report (PR294)

Run US Balancing Report (PR294) to produce a report that you can use to balance wages and deductions by tax authority and tax category.

Compare the US Balancing Report totals with:

Payment Detail Listing (PR260)
Deduction Report (PR275)
Employee Deduction Report (PR276)
Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)
EFW2 File Creation (PR299)

W-2 Form Printing (PR297)

Run W-2 Form Printing (PR297) to produce edit reports, negative wage reports, or to print actual W-2 forms. This program can be run by quarter or by full year. To run by quarter for quarter balancing, select the applicable quarter in the Options tab Balancing Quarter field.

Also run PR297 to create a comma-separated value (CSV) file which can be used:

To print W-2s using a third party software.
To create corrected W-2 forms. This file is used as one of the two input files required for creating W-2c forms. See Chapter 13 Processing W-2 Corrections for more details.
In a spreadsheet to check for errors or use it for payroll balancing.

PR297 is not an update program, so you can run it anytime during the year.

W-2c EFW2C (PR298)

Run PR298 (W-2c EFW2C) to create W-2c forms and an EFW2C file for submission to the Social Security Administration. The PR298 uses the CSV output files from the W-2 Form Printing (PR297) and EFW2 File Creation (PR299) to create the corrected forms and files. Ensure you save the CSV output files from your run of PR297 and PR299.

EFW2 File Creation (PR299)

Run PR299 (EFW2 File Creation) to create an EFW2 file of W-2 information for government reporting. This program can be run by quarter or by full year.

PR299 also creates a CSV file of the EFW2 data. This CSV file can be used for balancing purposes during the year. This CSV file are also used as the Original EFW2 file for the PR298 (EFW2C File tab).

To run by quarter for quarter balancing, select the applicable quarter in the Options tab Balancing Quarter field.

Compare the EFW2 File Creation (PR299) totals with:

Payment Detail Listing (PR260)
Deduction Report (PR275)
Employee Deduction Report (PR276)
Unemployment Continuation Form (PR291)