How to record payroll beginning balances in EBMS
If EBMS is installed in the middle of a payroll year and worker and payroll data is not 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 W2 processing.
Follow these steps to enter beginning balances and start payroll accurately:
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 of 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.
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Enter the timecard or timecards for the entire period from the beginning of January to date. This will be a summary of the year so far. Go to to enter a 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 worker's pay stub.
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When wage totals have been entered by pay type, process taxes by selecting from the timecard entry menu. This step will calculate the taxes for this timecard using the current tax configuration.
You will need to set up all taxes before this step is taken. For more detail on tax settings, review Adding New Taxes and Deductions to set up tax types and deductions and Configuring Worker Taxes and Configuring Company Taxes to configure specific settings.
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Select from the timecard entry menu and a View Taxes window will open with the tax type, taxable amount, total tax amount, etc.
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Compare the tax Amount column on the View Taxes window with the total amount of tax that has been withheld for the worker 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.
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Save timecard information by selecting File > Save from the timecard menu or typing Ctrl + S on the keyboard.
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Select from the timecard menu or type Ctrl + N on the keyboard to create a new timecard and enter the next employee’s information.
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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 report.
Double-click the report name to open the Print and Report Options page and configure the field display options for the report. Click the Print Preview button to view the results. Compare all the numbers before proceeding with the next step.
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Go to to open the following window:
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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. DO NOT CALCULATE TAXES FROM THIS WINDOW since it will overwrite any changes you have made to the tax list.
- Click the Select All button at the bottom of the page to select all timecards. This will put a checkmark in the Pay column for all timecards.
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Click the Process > Process Payments 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.
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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.
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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 a Koble Systems 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 W2 processes. The journal entry will have reversed the unneeded entries from the account balances.