SmartFusion Modules > Payroll > Process > Print Payroll Registers/Prelist

Recent Changes:
6.227 - Updated LA state tax calculation for changes put in place from January 1st 2025.

6.224 - Added "Calculated Additional Medicare Amount"  on page 3 of the pre-list report.

6.221 - Fixed the deduction report to calculate the employer cost for deductions with deduction type ‘4 - 401K’ based on the 401K wage and not the gross wage.

6.211 - For GA, made changes to state tax calculations to handle merging of tax code 'D' with 'B' and changing 'Head of Household' from 'E' to 'D'.

6.205 - Made changes if the setting for Prevent negative check is set in Payroll system file the Payroll register will include the zero/negative check report if run for just the one employee with negative check or for all employees and no check is created.If the setting is not checked the register will include the employee with negative check and produce a negative check.( Direct Deposit will not include the negative entries if the employee with negative check is set up for Direct Deposits)

6.174 
-Added new fields to store the Employer FICA Wage, Federal withheld and Taxable Wage for employees without supernumerary pay types so they can excluded from the 941's specifically for scenario's for an employee is paid with both supernumerary and other pay types. 
-Added new field for Employer Medicare Withheld so it can be used in the Payroll Summary Report

6.172 - Pay rate field on Prelist and Register will now display the number of decimals configured in the Payroll System Setting (only if the customer has changed this value)

6.169 - Updated the Calculated Medicare Liability on Page 3 of the Payroll Register to include Additional Medicare Withholdings for employees

6.167 - Added a sequence of Name/Department for the 'Deduction reports for current period'.   

Refer to bottom of page for changes prior to version 6.160

Introduction

Running a payroll register is required before printing checks and updating payroll. The payroll register process calculates pay, deductions, leave, and validates that all data is valid for a successful payroll run. This validation includes verifying that deduction codes have a computation method set, employee direct deposits have valid bank account and routing information, and employees have a valid social security number.

The payroll register can be thought of as a work space for preparing your payroll. All payroll register data is stored in a temporary working table so you can run a register multiple times until you get the results you are looking for, then move forward with printing checks and updating payroll. Printing checks will always use the current state of the register.

Check and direct deposit notification numbers will be assigned in the order that the payroll register was printed. So if the register was printed by Department, then the checks/notifications will be assigned and printed in Department order.

Payroll Register Employee Selection

Employees will be included in the payroll register based on the filter options specified by the user. In addition, employees need to be active in payroll, and not have a type of Inactive or Leave of Absence.

If the payroll register is being run for a pay group that has been designated as an Exceptions pay group, then employees records marked as exception pay will be included in the register. Employees that are marked as exception pay and have zero current hours and zero current pay will still be included in the register so that any deductions that are employer cost only can be calculated for fringe processing.

Deposit entire amount into primary account this is a new feature available, provided that the setting to allow this is checked in Payroll settings. A warning will display, informing the user that this will occur for all employees for this register.

Report Selections Tab

Payroll prelist
Payroll register and zero/negative check report

• Include W4 information/notes
• Include hours/pay distribution
• Include deductions
• Include leave

Adjust FICA & Medicare withholdings to match quarterly reports
Deductions reports for current period - Selection list of deductions will become visible

• Report Sequence - Name (Default)/ Department

Include SSN on report

Data Selections Tab

Enter pay period ending date
The cut-off date of the pay period.

Enter current pay date
The check date.

Enter the pay period for month (1-5)
Deductions can be configured to not be withheld during every pay period. Use this setting so specify the pay period for this payroll so that only deductions that are configured for this pay period will be withheld.

Specifying the deduction pay period will not have any impact on which employees are included in the payroll register. This setting will only impact the calculation of how much is withheld for the employee's deductions. If an employee has a deduction that is not marked for this specific pay period, the deduction will be still be listed in the deduction history for this payroll, but the withholding amounts will be set to zero.

Pay types may also be configured to only be calculated on certain pay periods through the pay schedule on the Pay Type Parameter Form.

Classes
Register will only included employees that are assigned to the selected classes.

Locations
Register will only included employees that are assigned to the selected locations.

Departments
Register will only included employees that are assigned to the selected departments.

Employees
Register will only include the selected employees.

Pay Group
Register will only include employees that belong to the selected pay groups. If any of the selected pay groups are marked as an exception pay group, then any employee marked as exception pay will be included.

Federal Tax Calculation for W-4s submitted after the year 2020

There is a new method for calculating federal tax that only applies to employees who have submitted a w-4 after the year 2020. All employees who have submitted a w-4 before the year 2020 will continue to use the standard method and will not experience any changes in how their federal tax is withheld (excluding the exception of regular annual tax table rate updates).

For a detailed descriptions of how the federal taxes are calculated using the new post-2020 method, please reference the "Percentage Method Tables for Automated Payroll Systems" page of the publication 15-T (https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-publication-15-t).

The new fields that are used in calculating the new method can be found on the Tax tab of the Enter/Edit Employee Master screen and on the Federal Tax Table screen.

Pay Rate Number of Decimals

The pay rate on the Prelist and Register has logic that determines the number of decimal places to show. This logic is based on the Payroll System Settings Page 3 'Number of decimal for pay rate' field.

If the customer has never changed this field in the system settings, the number of decimals for the Prelist pay rate field will default to 4 and the number of decimals for the Register pay rate field will default to 2. After the customer updates this field for the first time, it will use the system setting value from that point on.

Changes Prior to Version 6.160

6.156 - Updated payroll register negative check section to also include zero checks.

6.154 - Updated and relabeled the FICA and Medicare Withholding for the Total Federal Tax Deposit on Page 3; The new labels are "Calculated FICA Liability" and "Calculated Medicare Liability" and will be based on the calculations for the payroll run itself  

6.142 - Fixed an issue when the Medicare Threshold was met it was using the increased percentage on the entire wage amount instead of just the amount that was over the threshold limit.

6.139 
-  Updated the "Deduction Reports for Current Period" to now include Employer cost only  deductions contained within that payroll. 
- Added new option for the client to select to "Adjust FICA & Medicare withholdings to match quarterly reports" instead of just making it automatic  

6.135 - Applied a minimum FICA Wage and minimum Medicare Wage of $10.01 as a filter when FICA & Medicare W/H are adjusted to match the federal 941 W/H 

6.132 - Applied a min net wage of $10.01 as a filter when FICA & Medicare W/H are adjusted to match the federal 941 W/H 

6.126 - Adjusted the FICA and Medicare Withholdings as well as the Net Wage by a penny on select employees to match the quarterly tax results  

6.123 - When combining direct deposits, removed the check to see if it was an exception payroll run.  

6.120 - Added Total Number of Checks and Total Number of Direct Deposit Notifications to Payroll Register Report. 

6.114 - Updated logic to withhold additional federal tax if there are federal taxable wages.  

6.109 
- Updated process to use the "Election Worker Salary Threshold" from the pay type rather than from the configuration items.
- Corrected issue were Election/Firefighter Worker pay types were always being subject to FICA and Medicare regardless of the pay type's configuration. Also ensured these pay types are subject to Retirement and Worker's Comp correctly based on the pay type configuration.

6.108 
- Fixed an issue on the report totals page where the FICA(Employer & Employee) amount was including the  pay types that were flagged for 'No employer FICA match'.  
- Updated process to store Qualified Sick Leave Wages and Qualified Family Leave Wages into the Employee and Payroll Register tables.

6.107 - Updated logic to not add additional federal tax if there are no federal taxable wages.  

6.101 - Made change to the register to not calculate federal tax for Federally Exempt employees that have the New W-4 for 2020 checked  

6.92 - Added new logic to calculate federal tax for employees who have submitted w-4s after the year 2020 with the new method. 
     - Refactored existing logic and cleaned up code for calculating federal withholding (No front-end changes)  

6.90 - Bug fix to ensure employer cost on "Normal" deduction types is calculated even if the employee cost is zero.
     - Updated label for field on the "Data Selections" tab from "Enter the pay period for deductions (1-5)" to "Enter the pay period for month (1-5)"
     - Updated logic to only include employee salary accounts that have pay types that fall within the selected pay period when calculating the wages. All pay types that are not using the new pay schedule feature will continue to be included in the wage totals as normal.

6.89 - Added Federal, FICA and Medicare calculations for Election Workers  

6.83 - Made adjustment to how Alabama State tax was calculated. 

6.70 - Fixed an error where exceptions that were in a department not in a PR paygroup were also being pulled in.  

6.58 - Added an exception line to the prelist warning if the pay rate multiplied by the hours does not equal current amount. This is only a warning and won't affect processing.

6.54 - For Alabama customer only. If a pay type is considered overtime, the system will now add a cap to the employee and employer retirement contributions that is determined by the class tier percentage and the annual wage for the pay type.

6.30 - Bug fix to correct ceiling balance/balance remaining for deductions with computation methods of "Percent of Net" and "Percent of Gross"

6.24 - Added new logic to handle garnishments; These are non-taxable normal deductions with no employer cost and are based on "Percent of Net" (Gross Wages - FICA Withholding - Medicare Withholding - All Tax Withholdings)