Deductions Problems

[geckoday]

Last year I tried what I thought should work but didn't and I don't understand why. What I did was set up two deductions:

Health Insurance - deductible boxes for FIT & SIT checked, boxes not checked for FICA, Medi
Owner Insurance - no deduction boxes checked

Each pay period the premium is a negative Health Insurance deduction and a positive Owner Insurance deduction. This should increase wages for FIT & SIT with the negative deduction but not decrease again with the positive deduction. FICA & Medi wages should increase, then decrease by the same amount so they don't get affected. Seemed like the perfect work around.

The problem is this worked fine for the SIT but it didn't add in for the FIT. My W-2 and 941's aren't showing the health insurance as federal wages. Why?

[Paul Mayer]

The problem is this worked fine for the SIT but it didn't add in for the FIT. My W-2 and 941's aren't showing the health insurance as federal wages. Why?

Yea, deductions would not add to the wages so they would not show up on the 941's or the W2's. I don't think that would be a viable workaround.

[geckoday]

Yea, deductions would not add to the wages so they would not show up on the 941's or the W2's. I don't think that would be a viable workaround.

Hmmm... Why not? It does for state, why not fed? A wage deduction such as my SIMPLE-IRA deducts from fed wages. Why wouldn't a negative contribution (to correct an error) not add back to wages? Are you saying we can't correct a federal wage deduction from a prior period with a negative deduction amount in the current period?

[Paul Mayer]

You cannot have a deduction setup that is marked as not taxable and then enter it as a negative as it breaks just about every report in PayWindow. It ends up with what we call a double negative.

If you do that, you are on your own as there is now way to dig back out of the hole it puts you in. :(

[geckoday]

You cannot have a deduction setup that is marked as not taxable and then enter it as a negative as it breaks just about every report in PayWindow. It ends up with what we call a double negative.

If you do that, you are on your own as there is now way to dig back out of the hole it puts you in. :(

That sounds like one extremely serious bug in Paywindow. Paywindow should not allow entries that put you in a hole you can't dig yourself out of. If its not supported it shouldn't be allowed. Searching the forum it appears this has been undocumented restriction for many years now. The help hasn't been changed to document it. The program hasn't been fixed to not allow it. Come on Paul, either fix it to work like people expect it to (and like state wages works) or fix the program to not allow it so we can't dig ourselves a hole. I really don't expect a known issue like this in a payroll program to not be addressed for years.

[Paul Mayer]

It's not a bug, you just cannot expect to make a program do something it is not designed for.

We are a Shareware company and sell through the try before you buy method of marketing. What you see is what you get. Therefore we have nothing but happy customers as they liked what they saw when they bought.

The program is designed to be used as we created it to be. if you try to trick it in ways we tell you that you cannot do, it is not a bug, it is like using a hammer to drive screws, it's not designed for that purpose.

If you've outgrown PayWindow, it's time to move on to something that is built for your needs. I'm sure you will not find it for $35 a year either. It sounds like you are ready for either a payroll service or one of the high end systems. We designed PayWindow to be a simple payroll solution with a low end cost with a decent features set at a decent price.

Unfortunately we do not cover the features that you need and PayWindow is just not for you then.