If EBMS is being installed in the middle of a payroll year and the data is not being automatically imported, beginning balances will be required to be entered for all the employees before any payroll can be processed. This is needed to make sure wages, taxes, and other deductions are correct for quarterly payroll taxes and year-end W-2 processing. To do this the following steps will need to be taken:
Enter the balances to date as a single timecard for each employee. All timecards to date may be entered separately if so desired but this will take considerably more time, unless only a few months or wages have been processed within the calendar year. Taxes will need to be verified and corrected on an employee-by-employee basis. Use the following steps to enter existing balances for each employee:
Enter the timecard or timecards for entire period from the beginning of January to date. Go to to enter timecard detail. Make sure all payroll types are properly entered, such as regular, overtime and benefit pay if you wish to list the year to date totals properly on the employee’s pay stub.
When wage totals have been entered, process taxes by selecting from the timecard menu. This step will calculate the taxes for this timecard using the current tax configuration. You will need to setup taxes before this step is taken.
Select from the timecard menu and the following list will open:
Compare the tax Amount column with the total amount of tax that has been withheld year-to-date. These amounts may not be equal because of payroll period differences, rounding differences, or rate changes. Change the tax Amount column to match the employee’s year to date totals.
Save timecard information by selecting File > Save from the timecard menu.
Select to enter the next employee’s information.
Repeat the steps above for each employee.
When all timecards have been entered and the taxes for each employee have been corrected, verify all the totals by running the Employee Earnings Record report. Go to and select report. Compare all the numbers before proceeding with the next step.
Go to to open the following window:
Select the current pay period and click on View All option. The timecards for all the employees that you entered should be listed on the screen. Click Select All button to select all timecards. DO NOT CALCULATE TAXES FROM THIS WINDOW since it will overwrite any changes you have made to the tax list.
Click the Process Checks button to process timecards. Load plain paper into your printer since the system will generate checks for the timecards you have entered. The First Check Number can be any number unless you are entering each pay period timecard individually, in which case you should enter the first check number of the original payroll checks.
After the first check is printed and again after all checks printed, a dialog will appear asking if checks printed properly. Click Yes if checks have printed correctly.
Repeat the steps above if you are entering the past timecards for each pay period. Note that you will need to set new pay period dates for each batch of timecards.
The checks that were processed will be posted to the payroll checking account. To correct the checking account balance a journal entry will need to be entered and posted. It is recommended that you work with your accountant or Eagle Solutions consultant to correct this balance if you are not familiar with general ledger balance sheet accounts.
When this has been completed, the employee windows should have the information needed to do quarterly payroll reports and year-end W-2 processes. The journal entry will have reversed the unneeded entries from the account balances.