I do not use the Make Other Payment option nor the Pay Remittance option. My method is to print off the balance sheet using last day of period covered, payroll report for period covered and G/L reports for same period. Then I post thru Acct Pay purchase module to vendor of Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) using the invoice date as the period ending date. Then I go thru the A/P payment module and pull up CRA and pay the invoice using the date that I am making the payment on. I then attach the cheque stub or online payment confirmation to the documents that I have printed off and file it. If there are any issues later then I have the printed document to back up what happened at that time.

so the invoice you create will reduce all the payroll liability accounts to 0.00 for the period covered ?

crbookkeeping,

Yes that is correct.  When you create the invoice (I always use a Recurring Entry), list all the liability accounts in the order you see them on the Balance Sheet as of the end of the period.  Then when you use the recurring entry, enter the dollar amounts on the balance sheet exactly as you see them on the balance sheet.  If it is a positive number, enter a positive number, if negative on the balance sheet for whatever reason, enter a negative (you see this more if you use the same concept in the same way for the GST/HST returns).

Background for the accounting geeks: Basically a positive number entered in the Purchase module will debit any account listed.   A negative entered in the Purchase module will credit the account.  So if you date the entry on the last day of the period, the balances will go to zero on that day, so the next period starts with a zero balance when you look at the G/L reports.  (for the sales module the treatment of the accounting is the reverse - postive number credits the account listed, etc.)

More for sbrowning - I have no clue why you would have the negative in your Vendor Aged report as you mention unless you got the dates incorrect and reported during that time period.

Is it wrong to use Make Other Payment?  Not if it gets you the same journal entry.  Is it easier?  Now that you can adjust entries in the module, it is easier than it was but I still like posting as a purchase invoice as smithco said (I do not think it is worthwhile to learn another data entry window that does the same thing as the Purchase module but looks completely different - a waste of time and energy).  And here is the main reason, it is always cash basis accounting so all invoice entries and payments are posted as of the date of the payment.

Is the Remittance feature useful?  It gets you the same journal entry.  Now that you can adjust entries, it really does adjust and correct the T4 information (it didn't do this for years and many people submitted incorrect T4 Summaries).  It posts the entry as of the last day of the period and the payment as of the date on the entry.  All that is now good but there is no real place to put line-by-line notes if you wish to (and sometimes you wish to).  And you still have to look at your balance sheet until that payment is made to manage your payables.

If you post the entry as a purchase invoice on the first or second day after the end of the period, it sits on your Vendor Aged report so you can manage the amount with the rest of your payables without looking at multiple reports.

Hope this helps

Hi Sbrowning,

On top of the suggestions from Smithco and Richard, if you are still interested of how to do a payroll remittance thru Pay Remittances in the Payments module, you can follow the steps below.

1. Make sure you have setup Sage 50 with remittance enabled.  See 10295 how to setup the payroll remittances.
2. In the Vendors module, open the Payments window/journal.
3. On the upper left section, change Pay Purchase Invoices to Pay Remittance.
4. In the Pay to the order of field, select the vendor you want to remit to (for example Receiver General)
5. The balances for each accounts linked for this vendor will show up in the Amount Owing column
6. If necessary, in the Payment Adjustment column
   • Put in the credit amount as a negative.
   • Verify that the Payment Adjustment Account is not the bank account, it should be a revenue or expense account. (Consult with your accountant to confirm what accounts should be used)
7. For each remittance balance, click the Payment Amount field
   • If necessary, overwrite the amount.
   • If the amount is wrong, then you need to investigate this further with your accountant, perhaps the book balance is incorrect.
8. Verify and fill in the rest of the payment cheque as you would normally.
9. If you have a government form to include, then write down any figures that you need to copy into the government form.
10. Enter in your Remittance Reference No. on the bottom left side of the window.
11. If you are sure everything is correct, click Process.

Hope this helps.

If any suggestions provided in this thread are able to help you resolving your issue, would you please click the 'Yes' button to the question - 'Did this answer the question?'  The thread will be marked as answered, which will benefit other users who have the same issue.  Thanks a lot.

If you use Remittances, and you show a negative amount in accounts payable, it's either that:

- you're paying the remittance before it's due, or

- you've switched the 'End of Remitting Period' and Payment (Cheque) dates.

The remittance amount should show as an Accounts Payable amount, from the end of the Remitting Period, to the Payment Date.  

If your CRA remittance was for August, and it's due on Sept 15, recording a Remittance will move all the amounts to be remitted out of the CPP, EI, and Tax Payable accounts as of Aug 31, into Accounts Payable, and record a second JE as of Sept 15 to record the payment.

You can, of course do it any number of other ways.   For financial presentation to a bank, they may want to see all your Government debt separately, and using Remittances will lump it in with the other payables in one G/L account.

Randy

RandyW said:

...For financial presentation to a bank, they may want to see all your Government debt separately, and using Remittances will lump it in with the other payables in one G/L account.

I thought the Remittance function does not post the payable until the payment date.  So technically it is on the balance sheet in separate G/L accounts until the payment is made but the accounts payable entry is back dated at that time.

Thanks for your input everyone, I just needed clarification! That helps a lot.

Yes.   The Remittance function makes the two entries on the appropriate dates.  

With one click:

This also makes the remittance report show the correct numbers for the amount due at all times.  If I enter a remittance and am hit by a bus at lunchtime, someone else checking the report for that remitting period can see that there's no amount due, and see the payment. 

Ok so I want to make sure I am doing this correctly.  The finance girl was laid off last year and I was put in her place with no accounting background what so ever.  I figured out how to do the payroll remittance by opening the past ones she did. So here is what I do:

Reports/Payroll/Employees

Report Type: Detail

Select All

Start: the first or the 16 of each month

Finish: the 15 or last day of each month

This gives me the GROSS (what I enter in the Payroll Remittance Form)

I compare the Net Pay with the DD Log to make sure it matches

Then I print the following:

Report/Payroll/Deduction and Expenses

Start and End : same as above

Select: CPP, EI, TAX

That gives me the amounts to pay along with the number of employees for that period.

Now that I have those numbers I go to my recurring payables and I post it as follow:

2185 CPP Payable

2180 EI Payable

2190 Witholding Tax Payable

If my remittance are for the 1-15 i post it as the 16.

If my remittance are for 16-31 I post it as the 1st.

That is what I am not sure that I am doing correctly.  Should I post it as of the 15 or the 31?

Then when I want to make the payment i go to:

Payment/Pay Purchase Invoice

Then I post it as of the day i pay it

Since I am starting a new year I want to start it properly.  Can someone tell me if I need to tweak anything?

Thanks,

LaChapa

I am using the "Pay Remittance" option yet somehow my balances are all off and never calculate correctly - we recently downgraded from Quantum to Premium and balancing the payroll was a struggle as tax our tax year end and our fiscal year are different - how do I adjust this>

Kelly:

The Pay Remittance option works well if it is setup properly. It will gather all your payroll remittance information and allow you to pay the amounts showing or different amounts. As a suggestion, I would look at your G/L entries to ascertain what the actual amounts, and differences are and record and pay using your purchases and payments screens.