PA Year-End Procedures

This topic is intended as a guide for your payroll year-end procedures. Your company's practices may vary.

  • Order 1-wide laser W-2 forms or 4-up laser W-2 forms.
  • Add payroll year in Server Manager or System Manager
  • Verify the payroll year for tax reporting is available and check history data has not been deleted for the payroll tax year.
  • Process last payroll for the year
  • Print month-end reports
  • Print quarter-end reports
  • Print special reports
  • Print W-2 forms
  • W-2 form, Box 14—401K, deferred compensation plans
  • IRS Backup
  • Employees with termination date are deactivated
  • Print quarterly reports:
    • Earnings and Deductions Report
    • Employer’s Tax Report
    • Withholding Report
    • Sick Leave and Vacation Report
    • Transaction History Report
    • Check History Report
    • 941 Worksheet
    • SUI Report
  • Print special reports
  • Print W-2 forms
  • Two sets
  • Keep another for the IRS
  • Roll up leave balances
  • Subscribe to Tax Service

When a new year is created by copying from the previous year, employee and employer history information is not updated with any information for the new year. When payroll checks are posted, records are added to the proper tables with records for the new year for the payroll month to which the check was posted.

Records for new years and periods are not added until a payroll check has been posted to that payroll year and period.

Back to top of page

After you add a payroll year, use the Change Payroll Year function to move between current and last-year data.

Traverse allows you to have multiple years active for Payroll. You would use multiple years of payroll data to print the W-2 forms for prior years. When you are ready to prepare and print the W-2 reports for employees for the prior tax year, you will need to change payroll year to the prior year to read the data in that year’s database to put on the W-2 forms. When finished preparing and printing the W-2 forms you will need to change the payroll year back to your current payroll year to continue processing payroll.

Back to top of page

Year-End Payroll Checklist

  1. ____ Backup data files.
  2. ____ Post the payroll checks for the last payroll cycle of the year.
  3. ____ Print the quarterly reports:
    • Earnings and Deductions Report
    • Employer's Tax Report
    • Sick and Vacation Report
    • Withholding Report
    • State Unemployment Report
    • Department History Report
    • Transaction History Report and Check History Report
    • 941 Worksheet
  4. ____ (OPTIONAL) Print any additional reports or save them to a file.
  5. ____ Backup data files.
  6. ____ Add new year. Open Server Manager and expand TRAVERSE and your Company ID. Expand Applications, right-click on PA, and select 'Add Year'. In the Payroll box select your company to copy from and enter your next payroll year. In the Copy Data box select the prior year to copy from and click OK. Adding the new year does the following:
    • Alternately, you can use the Payroll Year function on the Traverse System Manager Administration menu to add a new payroll year to a company database.
    • Clears year-to-date balances for all employees
    • Any company specific formulas and formula tables will be copied to the new year
  7. ____ Change payroll years using the Change Payroll Year function on the Periodic Processing menu to change to your new year.
  8. ____ Delete outdated recurring entries using the Purge Recurring Entries function on the Periodic Processing menu.
  9. ____ Consolidate leave balance records using the Roll Up Leave Balance function on the Periodic Processing menu.
  10. ____ If you elected to have the system accrue leave hours: Switch to the new year by selecting the Change Payroll Year function in the Periodic Processing menu. If you want to clear leave for the start of your new year, select the Clear Leave Hours function on the Periodic Processing menu. Otherwise, manually update leave hours in the new year using the Leave Adjustments function on the Periodic Processing menu.
  11. ____ Update the federal, state, and local tax tables and formulas in the new year if necessary. A currently supported version of Traverse 11 and updated maintenance on that version ensures that you are always up to date. Contact your reseller to obtain the latest version of our state and federal tax routines.
  12. ____ Make sure you are in your new year, the current year is displayed in the footer of the Traverse screen, or by selecting the Change Payroll Year function in the Periodic Processing menu to see what year fills in the box. If the new year does not default into the box, select the new year and change to your new year to process payroll in the new year.
  13. ____ Change years to the prior year using the Change Payroll Year function.
  14. ____ Prepare W-2 forms. Select W-2 Processing from the Quarter/Year-End Reports menu.
  15. ____ Prepare and print the W-2 forms.
  16. ____ Create your W-2 magnetic media file by selecting 'Magnetic Media' from the Output in the W-2 Processing function on the Quarter/Year End Reports menu, if required by the IRS.
  17. ____ Output your magnetic media file to a disc using the W-2 Processing function in the Quarter/Year End Reports menu, and select 'Magnetic Media' in the Output section.

Back to top of page