Chuck -

Look at the effective date prior to doing the update for a tax that is updating in the tax release you are downloading.  This can be found in PR > Taxes > Tax Rates.  Then pick the tax such as COSWH and note the effective date.  Run the update and then go back to that screen.  It should have updated the Effective Date if applied correctly.

Cheers,

John McLagan
Independent Senior Consultant
Johnny on the Spot

I do appreciate you trying to help, but I feel that you didn't read my original post or might have missed my point. Your answer seems more geared toward "how can I confirm that a tax update applied correctly" rather than "how can I easily tell which tax version I'm on".

In my original post, I mentioned the method you are suggesting. Effective date isn't a good option when all the minor tax updates (like the 2-3 released so far this year) share the same effective dates. At best, this tells me that I'm on 2023.X. The X is important to know.

I'll ask this a different way. Is there anywhere in Sage CRE300 (or even a log file somewhere) where it will tell me something like "You are on Tax Update Version: 2023.03"?

It seems like the official answer is:

Create a Sage City or Sage Knowledgebase account
Search for the latest tax update release notes
Find something in that document that has changed with the latest update
Go into PR > Setup > Taxes > Tax Rates
Compare formulas with the thing you found in the document (since effective dates are the same for the sub-updates)
Feel reasonably confident that everything is as it should be

I guess what I was hoping is that there was some option I was missing that would be more like:

Go into PR > Help > About Payroll
Your tax version is listed here

If you use the two step process, you'll end up with 2 different print files.  If you download & choose to update at that same time, you'll end up with 1 print file. If you can locate these/this print file(s), (in other words, save it to file in a particular place so you'll have it as a reference) you can confirm you've downloaded the file & that you updated the taxes.  If you open these print files, they will provide you with paths to backup copies of files that you can also use to confirm that you've got the latest using file explorer.  I think there's been 3 tax updates so far this year.  The last one included: 

"Payroll Tax Update 23.03

Update 23.03 includes a state tax change.

State tax change

Connecticut Paid Family Leave (CTPFL)Effective date: January 1, 2023The taxable wage limit has been increased to $160,200.The employee contribution rate remains at 0.5%."

So, yes, checking the wage limit on CTPFL tax under setup tax rates would also indicate you're up to date.

Also, if you can locate your Dowload Tax folder inside Timberline Office\9.5\Accounting\MISC, you'll see the different taxes you've downloaded.  For example our's looks like this:  PTUS2301.zip, PTUS2302.zip, PTUS2303.zip if I've downloaded all the 2023 tax updates so far (#01, #02, and #03).

Thank you Rhonda. I do see the downloaded tax updates in Timberline Office\9.5\Accounting\MISC. I think that is probably the closest I'll get to an "easy" way to check other than by comparing tax rate formulas. Although there is always a chance that the tax update was downloaded and not applied, which means they may not up be to date.

I think I may be lost on the first suggestion. I do have the print file and I do see the backup_tax location. It has several backups in there, but I don't see how any of the file names or contents correspond to which tax version we are on. In our case, we accidentally missed the first two updates, which is why I'm trying to determine an easy way to confirm. Was the idea that I could look at the backup date and compare it to when the tax versions were released? If so, it unfortunately won't help in all cases.

If you change your view of the backup_tax location to show date modified and most recent first, it may help.  The tax updates are cumlative so if you got PTUS2303.zip, you've got the others, too.  The printout, if done as one step for both download & update will show two sections:  One about the download, and one about the update.  If done in two steps, you'll find two different printouts.  When in doubt, you can always download taxes and update again.  I try to name the print files to try to reflect which update I'm applying.  Maybe not as reliable, but ... one more thing I compare beforehand is in the properties of the Tax.PRX file's, I compare the date created before and after the update is applied.  The Tax.PRX file's location is controlled by your settings under File Locations. 

It sounds like there isn't a definitive in-program way to simply see your tax version. I'll accept your suggestions as a possible workaround. Thanks again!