Setting Up Payroll

If you have 1 or more employees, you can save yourself some time and effort by setting up your company's payroll options in the Employees and Payroll module when you finish creating your company.

The Employees and Payroll module makes short work of payroll tasks and helps you track your company's payroll expenses in a variety of ways. There are several components that work together in the Payroll module. Some components affect everyone on your payroll, while others are unique to each employee.

Follow these simple guidelines and your company payroll will be up and running in very little time.

ClosedSubscribing to a service plan that includes payroll

ClosedGathering the information you need

To set up: You will need:
Federal Taxes
  • Contact information for remitting taxes withheld on paycheques.
  • Your EI contribution rate.
Provincial Taxes
  • Contact information for remitting taxes withheld on paycheques.
Incomes
  • A list of the types of incomes that your company uses (for example, hourly wages, or commissions).
  • Information about if and when federal and provincial taxes are calculated for the incomes.
Other Payments and Deductions
  • A list of other benefits (for example, retirement plan matching contributions) and deductions (for example union dues) that affect employee paycheques.
  • The amount or percentage for each employee, any annual limits that apply, and the relevant tax calculation information.
  • You will also need contact information for monies you will be remitting (for example, union dues).
Payroll Schedule
  • Payroll schedules for your employees (for example, bi-monthly or weekly)
Employees
  • Contact information, hire date, SIN.
    Income types for each employee.
  • Other payments and deductions that apply to most of the employee's paycheques.

ClosedReviewing your chart of accounts

ClosedAdding company-wide payroll settings

  1. Review the pre-defined payroll incomes, make any necessary changes to the applicable taxes, and set up the deductions and additional incomes your company requires.
  2. Enter the default rates for calculating payroll taxes.
  3. Set up any entitlements that you want to track.
  4. Set up the government tax authorities you are obliged to remit payroll remittances to.
  5. Add any Job Categories your company uses
  6. Re-name (or remove) any of the following:
  7. Provincial payroll taxes
  8. WCB
  9. Payroll entitlement boxes
  10. User-defined expense in employee records
  11. Additional Info boxes in employee records
  1. Select the linked accounts to use for transactions involving the following payroll-related expenses:

ClosedAdding employee settings

  1. If you subscribe to a service plan that includes payroll, select the tax table for calculating the employee's payroll taxes.
  2. Add the employee's tax information.
  3. Set up the employee's payroll incomes.
  4. Set up the employee's payroll deductions.
  5. If you pay different WCB Rates for your employees, enter the workers compensation payment rate in the employee's record.
  6. If there are any additional expenses that you incur as the employer (for example, retirement plan matching contributions), add them to the employee's record.
  7. If you are using entitlements, set up the calculations in the employee's record.
  8. If you are using direct deposit, enter the employee's bank account information.

ClosedAdding historical amounts to employee records

Historical Amounts

An employee has worked for your company for 6 months prior to the creation of your company file in Sage 50 Accounting. In that time, the employee has earned 2 entitlement days. To record this information, you would open the employee's record and enter 2.00 in the Historical Days column on the Entitlements tab. Sage 50 Accounting will include those 2 days in future entitlement calculations for that employee.

Year-To-Date Amounts

ClosedUsing Direct Deposit

ClosedReviewing your payroll information

Note: If you are importing employee records from another accounting software package, or you imported employee records when you created your company file in Sage Software Canada, Ltd., it is a good idea to follow these guidelines to ensure that your payroll operations run smoothly.