Incorrect Deductions in Previous Payroll

Oops, I just discovered I have the wrong deductions or employer taxes in some previous payroll periods!

What you do depends on the place where the error occurs

Incorrect Employee Withholding

If you made a minor error in employee withholding (e.g. incorrect number of deductions), you probably will need to talk to the employee to see what they want to do.

If they don't mind a slight over-withholding or under-withholding, you can probably just correct the problem for future payroll periods, and do nothing about previous pay periods.

If they want to correct the error, the easiest way to do that is to enter the correct withholding setup, and then make adjustments to withholding for the next few pay periods. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Choose Preferences from the Options menu, and choose Expenses from the submenu.
2. Turn on the Allow Payroll Deduction Changes checkbox, then click OK.
3. Use the Write Payroll command for the next pay period, just like you normally do.
4. Double-click on the Deduction column for the employee that needs correcting.
5. You'll see a list of withholding deductions. Type in a larger value if you under-withheld in past periods. Type in a smaller value if you over-withheld in past period.
6. Finish the payroll process just like normal.

Incorrect Employer Taxes or Insurance

If you made an error in employer taxes or insurance, you can follow the steps above to correct the tax amounts in the next pay periods.

If the error is large, it may be easier to follow these steps instead:

1. Choose Payroll Records from the Costs menu.
2. Click the New button.
3. Enter an employee into the Employee field.
4. Enter Employer Tax into the Transaction Type popup field.
5. Enter the specific tax or insurance in the Applies To field.
6. Enter the amount of the adjustment into the Amount field. If you overpaid in previous periods, enter a negative amount. If you underpaid, enter a positive amount.
7. Goldenseal will add the adjustment when you use the Pay Bills command to pay for the taxes.

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