By Justin Holmes and Tiziana Smit (QuickBooks Tech Team)
Quick Payroll news:
This month we are going to touch on Quick Payroll as we see and hear a lot of common mistakes being made during the company setup.
Most of our Support calls refer to PAYE either calculating too high or less than usual.
Let’s take a look at the common mistakes made:
- Incorrect tax tables
- Incorrectly entered Tax start date (Personal details)
- Incorrect run date (should be day in which employees are paid)
- PTT’s marked ‘non-taxable’
- YTD figures incorrect (missing a period or captured incorrectly)
- Calculation types changed
- Company year start date and end date
Let’s elaborate now on each point mentioned above.
Incorrect Tax tables:
When rolling over to the new Tax year, there is usually a new update to install which will include the latest tax tables. We always send out an email shot to our Payroll database, which informs all of our users about the changes and includes the updated tax tables as well. It is very important that you ensure your email address has been updated with our Registrations department, to ensure you receive this information.
To ensure that you are on the latest tax tables, Please go to ‘Tax Tables’ on your home page.
Incorrect Tax start date:
This can be found underneath each employee’s Personal details. In most cases the correct tax start date to use should be 01/03/20….. (year).
However, if the employee were to start during the current tax year, then the tax start date will be the date in which they started i.e 01/11/2015
Incorrect run date:
This date should be changed to the day in which wages / salaries are paid out. A common mistake that is made when restoring a backup is assuming that the run date will automatically change. To change the run date before doing a Payroll run, please go to Utilities / Change run date, close the company and re-open.
Please note the run date should only be changed when creating a company or restoring a backup. Do not change the run date every period when rolling over as this is done automatically when you process a weekend / fortnight or month end.
If your run date is not changing and your figures continue to appear under this week or this month, it means that you have not been processing weekends or month ends. When you roll over to the new month, all the figures should appear under the column ‘This Tx Year’.
PTT’s marked ‘non-taxable’
There are only certain PTT’s that are tax deductible and they are usually Pension funds and RA (retirement annuity).
All other PTT’s should have the ‘Taxable’ block ticked unless SARS or your Tax Practitioner say otherwise.
YTD figures incorrect (missing a period or captured incorrectly)
If you are starting a new company during a Tax year, be sure that the YTD figures captured are correct and include figures only up until the last period and not including the current period as these will populate when you roll over to the new period / month.
Your YTD figures could also be incorrect because you are missing period / month. To confirm this, please go to Reports (top of the screen) / Payslip print / Previous payslips.
Each of your period ends should appear in the following screen:
Calculation types changed
There are default PTT’s already setup for you with the correct calculation types. We do not recommend you change the default PTT setup unless advised by one of our Support agents.
For Basic pay (monthly employees), the calculation type should be ‘Basic pay days’ and weekly ‘Basic pay hours’.
For overtime, the calculation type should be ‘Overtime (hours).
The PAYE PTT, calculation type should be ‘Tax’.
The UIF PTT (deduction and company contribution) should be ‘UIF’.
Company year start date and end date
The Tax year for everyone based in South Africa runs from the 1st of March through until the end of February the following year.
To conclude, if you have gone through the setup and have noticed that some of the points mentioned above refers to your setup, please contact our Support centre on 0861 726 657 and speak to one of our friendly Support agents who will gladly assist you.