07Nov 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Job Costing Payroll When Using a Payroll Service

Job Costing Payroll When Using a Payroll Service

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
Using an outside payroll service, such as Paychecx or ADP, is a popular option for many business owners.  While using a payroll service often provides many benefits one of the biggest challenges or drawbacks is for the company that needs job costing.  See this question submitted by a reader. My company uses a 3rd party to do all of our payroll.  We receive an itemized report back showing what we spent for the week.  I am having trouble trying to get this information charged out to individual jobs.  I track all of the hours separately in Excel, with estimated costs.  How can I job cost this information?  Thank you – Michelle Hi Michelle I bet you are having trouble getting payroll information charged to individual jobs, that’s one of the…
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09Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Reporting Fringe Benefits Paid in Cash on Certified Payroll

Reporting Fringe Benefits Paid in Cash on Certified Payroll

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, The "Sunburst" Website, Webinars & Training
Reporting prevailing wage fringe benefits paid in cash to the employee has specific requirements when completing the Federal WH-347 Certified Payroll Report.  Here is a question from a reader who is submitting the built-in QuickBooks certified payroll report and is being told that she is not correctly reporting the cash fringe benefit amounts. Hi, I found your blog through a Google search and can't believe all the information you have here about certified payroll, prevailing wage and using QuickBooks - so far I've learned so much!  I could really use some help and couldn't find anything that I thought fit our specific situation.  We are a non-union contractor working on prevailing wage jobs and we pay the full fringe benefit amount to the employee in cash.  We use the QuickBooks…
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23Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Wage Restitution and Certified Payroll Revisions

Wage Restitution and Certified Payroll Revisions

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers
  Wage restitution and certified payroll revisions happen when you miss an update to the wage determination which increases the prevailing wage rate and the fringe benefit rate or perhaps you weren't informed until after working on the project for several weeks/months that this project was subject to prevailing wage.  Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of clear guidelines for submitting revised certified payroll reports, however, I've had experience in following two different sets of requirements.  See this question submitted by a reader. My question is, if a subcontractor pays restitution for an employee(s), do they have to send the same Certified Payroll Reports back with revision on top? Or will they have to send a separate Certified Payroll Report with the dates they were owed restitution stating the dates they…
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12Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Worker’s Comp Increases 45% in California, Beginning 7/1/2012

Worker’s Comp Increases 45% in California, Beginning 7/1/2012

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News, Payroll Tips, Webinars & Training
  California Worker's Compensation Insurance premiums will increase by 45% over last year  for renewals after July 1, 2012 according to The Worker's Comp Executive. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones went against a unified front of labor and employer representatives siding with the insurance industry and the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) in approving a 8.3% increase mid-year rate hike for California employers.  Added to the 37% rate increase he approved for January, July and later renewals are facing an average rate increase of 45.3% over last year at the same time. Worker’s Comp and payroll taxes take a huge bite out of a contractors profit when working on Public Works construction projects – especially if the contractor is paying the full fringe benefit rate of the prevailing wage…
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15May 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Deducting the Cost of Lost Equipment from an Employee’s Pay

Deducting the Cost of Lost Equipment from an Employee’s Pay

IRS Information, Payroll Tips
  Can you deduct the cost of lost equipment from your employee’s pay?  As a business owner I'm betting that on more than one occasion you have had an employee who has lost his company provided cell phone more than once and you've have to replace it.   Perhaps you want to recover the cost of the phone via a payroll deduction - before you do, read the rest of this great article from HR Matters E-Tips, because the answer depends first on state and federal restrictions and second on how much you want to deduct. Both federal and state laws limit the deductions employers can take from their employee’s wages.  The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which requires minimum wage payments and premium overtime pay for covered employees,…
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16Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Prevailing Wage-Paying More Than the Wage Decision Requires

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Questions from our readers
  The Wage Decision provides you with the minimum amounts (base rate and fringe rate) that you must pay your employees when they work on a Prevailing Wage job - but confusion often happens when you actually pay your employees more than what the Wage Decision requires.  See this question from a reader. We pay up and above the wage decision that we have. I need to know how to account for fringe benefits in cash that are already included in the base pay for us. For example the wage decision for an operator is $12.98 base with $3.31 fringe. I pay my operator $22 an hour. So the pay is up and above the rate. So on the form how to I show that?  Do I have to show…
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27Feb 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Payroll Tip: Union Benefits Calculated Against Hours NOT Wages

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers
  Union fringe benefits can be calculated in a number of ways; some are based on a percentage of gross wages while others are a fixed dollar amount per hours worked.  Either way you look at it, it can become pretty complex.  Take this question from a blog reader for example. I have union benefits that are calculated against the employee's hours, not gross wages.  How do I do that in QuickBooks? A.  In QuickBooks you want to set up your union benefits as Company Contribution Payroll Item types. I find it to be faster if you go to the Lists menu -> Payroll Item List -> click the Payroll Item button at the lower left -. choose New -> and Custom Setup -> and Company Contribution. When setting up…
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20Feb 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Payroll Tip – Handling 1 Employee with 2 Union Benefit Packages

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Questions from our readers
  A payroll tip for handling one employee with two different  wage rates and union fringe benefit packages on a single paycheck.  The following question was submitted through our "Ask the Expert" form. How do I setup one employee to be paid weekly, with two entirely different wage and benefit rates, depending on the customer or item; through a single paycheck?  I would like to set it up to just select one rate or the other and have the appropriate wage rate, benefits and contributions be automatically selected.  This is for one employee working with two different unions, so the fringe benefit liabilities go to different parties on different liability checks. Any suggestions would be appreciated. A.  While the expensive construction specific software programs can handle this easily, QuickBooks will…
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30Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Paycheck/Payroll Frequencies by State

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips
Minimum payroll frequencies are determined by each state and can be quite confusing.  I'm often asked "How often do I have to pay my employees" during a Certified Payroll Training Webinar.  State minimum paycheck frequencies are shown below - this information comes directly from the U.S. Department of Labor's website. It's difficult to thoroughly cover the requirements of all 50 states in a 2 hour webinar, but it has crossed my mind that a series of blog posts on the differences between what State Laws are for how often payroll must be generated and how that can effect the generation of a certified payroll report would be a good thing to do.  While I could have simply started this series and talked about the complexities of generating certified payroll reports…
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04Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Prevailing Wage Jobs – Fringe Benefits Question

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Questions from our readers
Payment of fringe benefits on prevailing wage jobs frequently cause a lot of confusion - such as the question submitted below from a reader. My boyfriend is being told that the company he works for will be taking half his pay each week to put in a 401k HALF!!!  I wanted to know if this is legal---they say if he doesnt sign the paper he will be fired so it is mandatory.  Is this legal?  He is in construction and works for a prevailing rate.   Thank you very much - Janelle Hi Janelle There may be some confusion and/or miscommunication going on here and NOT knowing the full details I can only provide you with basic information. When an employee works on a prevailing wage job {rate job}, he has…
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07Dec 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Payroll Tip-Worker’s Comp Tracking on Vacation, Holiday & Overtime Pay

Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers
Payroll can be one of the most complex duties of any bookkeeper's job - especially when you need to OR want to track your Worker's Compensation costs for job costing purposes and pay your employees Vacation, Holiday and Overtime wages.  Just take a look at this question, submitted by one of our blog subscribers! I have set up the Workers Compensation tracking in QuickBooks for a construction company with no problem, it seems to be working fine.  My question is - how do you keep track of Holiday, Vacation, and Overtime pay?  Do I set up each payroll item with the Workers Comp {WC} rate for each class?  For example Carpenter-Holiday and Carpenter-Vacation?  Thanks, Kathleen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Answer: Hi Kathleen; That's an excellent question! One of the first things that you…
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30Nov 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Office Policies & Your Business-How Do You Handle These Situations?

"Maad" Rants & Other Stuff, Be A Better Bookkeeper, Payroll Tips
Creating office policies for your small business can be difficult, as most of us are well aware.  How do you handle sick time, vacation time, personal time, or a death in the family?  Better yet, how do your clients and/or customers handle it when it happens to you? I was reading a very interesting article yesterday about "Can You Require Sick Employees to Stay Home"?  My first reaction was "Wow!  Good question" quickly followed by "as a small business owner I should be able to". After all, it is officially cold and flu season and already every where you go people are coughing and sneezing; do you really want them bring that to work?  I know I don't want that to happen! Sunburst, like many other small businesses consists of…
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17Nov 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Payroll Tips – Answers to 7 Holiday Pay Questions

Be A Better Bookkeeper, IRS Information, Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Corner
Payroll and holiday pay can be confusing and overwhelming and here we are right at the height of the upcoming holiday season!  I found these great tips from HR Matters and wanted to share them with you.  These tips provide answers to common questions such as:  Do you have to provide paid holidays?  What about for new employees?  Do you have to pay overtime to employees who have to work on a holiday? We’re officially heading into the holiday season with Thanksgiving coming up next week and Christmas and the New Year just around the corner. If you are like most employers, you may be dealing with holiday pay issues. To help you out, the HR Matters E-Tips Editors have put together the top seven holiday questions that they answer…
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18Jul 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Payroll Tip – Wage Underpayments & Wage Restitution

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips
This QuickBooks payroll tip discusses underpaying employee wages and wage restitution, after paychecks have been created and cashed. Paying your employees the correct rate of pay is one of the most critical portions of your business; and if those employees are subject to multiple pay rate or have frequent pay rate changes, ensuring that everyone is being paid the correct rate can be a tedious and potentially error prone process. In today's busy workplace, business owners and payroll administrators are faced with numerous challenges which sometimes result in employee wage underpayments.  Often times a wage shortage isn't discovered until after paychecks have been created and cashed; which then requires wage restitution to the employee. Quite often this situation puts the business owner or payroll clerk in a quandary about how…
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