Adding Employer Tax Fields To Payroll Check Register

We had an issue pop up this month that was a bit puzzling on the surface.  When a client printed the payroll Check Register when the payroll posted, they were getting different results than when they reprinted the same report using Reports-Payroll-Reprint Journals-Check Register.

On the standard Check Register and Reprint Check Register reports, the Employer FICA taxes are totaled in to one field called Employer FICA Owed.  However, on the client's reports, this amount was also broken out in to two additional fields for Employer FICA/Social Security and Employer FICA/Medicare.  Given that these fields are not standard on the report, we knew (and confirmed through Microsoft Dynamics GP-Tools-Customize-Customization Maintenance) that the reports were modified.

In looking at these modified versions of the reports, we noticed that all of the fields matched with the exception of the Employer FICA/Social Security and Employer FICA/Medicare fields that were added to the reports.  But, why would the fields be different?  If the same fields were added to the reports?  Well, that is the big IF.

So, I opened each report in Report Writer, and here is what I found.  There are a total of four fields that store Employer FICA information, two for Social Security and two for Medicare.  When working with the Reprint Check Register report, the fields are located in the Payroll Check History table (for the Check Register report, the table is Payroll Work Header): Employer FICA/Med Tax On Tips, Employer FICA/Medicare Withholding, Employer FICA/SS Tax On Tips, and Employer FICA/Social Security Withholding.

In the client's case, one report was modified to pull only the "withholding" fields while the other report was modified with calculated fields to combine the "withholding" field with the corresponding "tax on tips" field (e.g., Employer FICA/Medicare Withholding + Employer FICA/Med Tax On Tips).  And because the client had employees with tips, the amount displayed for each of the FICA fields was off by the FICA on tips.

So, lesson learned, if you want to add the Employer FICA/Medicare and Employer FICA/Social Security to the payroll check register reports, make sure you either display all four fields or create calculated fields to summarize them appropriately.

Christina Phillips is a Microsoft Certified Trainer and Dynamics GP Certified Professional. She is a supervising consultant with BKD Technologies, providing training, support, and project management services to new and existing Microsoft Dynamics customers. This blog represents her views only, not those of her employer.