At the end of the calendar year, companies using the payroll portion of Agvance are finalizing the current year, printing W-2's and preparing for the new year. It is not required to wait until the end of the year to close the payroll year. Closing the payroll year can be done any time after the last payroll of December. Payroll reports can be generated, totals checked, and the payroll year can be closed. W-2's can then be printed from the archived year.
If Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage must be reported on the W-2’s, complete the information in one of the following places:
- At File / Open / Employees, on the Totals tab select Year and then the Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage box is available to be edited.
- At Hub / Utilities / Admin Utilities / Accounting / Batch Edit Employees, select the employees and edit the amount in the Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage column.
This information should be completed prior to printing W-2’s or creating the electronic W-2 file.
Late in December, the government will release the new tax tables for the next year. Before processing the first paychecks in January, update the tax tables. The federal tax tables will update by clicking the Import Fed, FICA, Medicare Info from Web button located at Accounting / Setup / Payroll Tax Tables.
Changes to the state tax tables must be manually updated. SSI monitors state websites, searching for the updates to the tax tables. If information is received from your state and you need help interpreting the state tax tables, please contact the Customer Support Team for assistance.
Ending the Payroll Year
Prior to ending the payroll year it is recommended that the Employee Totals report be run using the Period to Date source and Year to Date option and a second time using a date range (Jan. 1 – Dec. 31). Verify the totals on these two reports match. Make an image of the data by going to Hub / Utilities / Make Database Image then backup the \avdata\LastImage folder.
As the payroll month of December is ended at End of Periods / Payroll Month, Agvance archives the data in a separate folder named PYxxyyyy where xx are the first 2 letters of the current data folder (often AV for \avdata) and yyyy is the year selected at the End of Payroll Month screen.
Attendance records are archived with last year’s payroll as well as the checks and employee totals. If the Attendance module is used, it is important to update the attendance records before ending the payroll month in December. After ending the year, attendance balances may be reset in the current year data at Payroll / Attendance on the Reset Balances tab if appropriate.
End of payroll year also means running W-2s. W-2s can be printed before ending the year, or after ending the payroll year from the archived data set.
Attendance End of Year
Enter all attendance information before ending your payroll year. This will archive attendance records into the previous payroll year for future reference. After ending the payroll year, reset balances at Accounting / Payroll / Attendance before entering new attendance and payroll information.
