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Text File | 1990-03-11 | 25.2 KB | 527 lines

ANTHISTLE SYSTEMS & PROGRAMMING LTD. 563 Patricia Drive, Oakville, Ontario, CANADA L6K 1M4 Phone 416-845-7959 ************* NOTE FOR SHAREWARE USERS ************** The following letter was sent out with the 1990 Registered User tax updates. We have retained it on the ShareWare trial disk to highlight the changes in case you had an earlier ShareWare version of PAYROLL USA. If you are replacing an earlier ShareWare version then now is the time to Register so that you can receive timely updates. It is our policy not to issue the current year's Federal Taxes as ShareWare until March. This is because we are too busy December through February to spare the time to create a new ShareWare release, and also it is to encourage you to Register for the new year's taxes rather than trying to obtain them as ShareWare. If you do NOT Register before year end then you will always have incorrect Federal Tax calculations in the first quarter of the new year. Also, due to space constraints on the ShareWare distribution diskettes, the ShareWare version is missing some non essential but useful programs - in particular the one that prints Government reports. If you Register you receive a full set of programs with the current year's Federal Taxes at the time you Register, and you will be mailed the next year's Federal Taxes just as soon as they are available (late December or early January), together with any enhancements to the programs that have occured since you Registered. Please do not leave Registration until the latest possible time, we really are very busy December through end February and delays can occur. Register just as soon as you have evaluated the programs and decide you wish to continue using them. We receive nothing from the ShareWare disks you purchase, our ONLY return on our massive investment in developing this program comes from your Registration. Christopher Anthistle, 11th. March, 1990 *********************** 29th. December 1989 PAYROLL USA - JANUARY 1990 FEDERAL TAX UPDATE AND UPGRADE TO REGISTERED USER VERS 2.20 ============================================= Diskettes containing your Upgrade are enclosed. Insert Disk 1 in drive A. Commands to install it are: A: CD \ INSTALL CHANGES FOR 1990 ================ NEW OVERALL MENU ---------------- The most noticeable change is that the PAYUSA main menu has been totally changed so that it can accommodate more choices on one screen, and so that there can be several sub menu's for additional less frequently used items. All the existing utility programs can now be run from PAYUSA. (Some of these will be new to users who registered prior to April 1989). We have also added a few new utilities, such as a program to restore backups made by PAYROLL USA, and a preview of our new ShareWare program for checking disks for bad clusters and taking those clusters out of service. The disk checking program is not a part of PAYROLL USA, it is a separate ShareWare program, though it was written because we have had a surprising number of calls from people experiencing hard disk problems when using PAYROLL CANADA and PAYROLL USA. It seems that bad clusters are more prevalent than I expected so I thought it might be found useful. All the utilities display introductory text explaining what they do, and have a way out without taking any action, so don't be afraid to have a look at them even if you have no immediate use for them. PRINTING W-2's -------------- This is on the main PAYUSA menu. Take the choice for "PRINT GOVERNMENT REPORTS (REGISTERED USERS ONLY)" then the sub choice for W-2's. There is some introductory text that will be displayed if you take this choice. You can exit after reading the text without printing the W-2's if you wish, so don't be afraid to just have a look. FEDERAL TAXES ------------- The programs have January 1990 Federal Taxes. Because of the number of other enhancements in this release we are a little late in mailing the disks and it is possible you will have had a pay period in 1990 already before receiving the new disks. If that pay period had to be processed with the 1989 programs it will not matter. The major tax change as far as employers are concerned is the FICA (Social Security) rate. The new programs have logic to play catch up with FICA and FUTA (though the FUTA rates did not change this year they might some other year). The programs will automatically collect in the second 1990 pay any difference in YTD FICA and FUTA caused by using the 1989 program for the 1st. pay. The overall result is that 1990 FICA and FUTA rates will be applied for the entire year thus keeping the 941 and 940 reports correct. We will keep that logic in for future years to take some of the pressure off getting tax updates out during this holiday season. We cannot play catch up with Income Tax but the changes from year to year are usually fairly small and as it is adjusted anyway when the employee files his or her return the difference in Income Tax for one pay is inconsequential. STATE AND LOCAL TAXES --------------------- Updating these is a user responsibility. However, we do have a lot of users in California, and we use California taxes as our defaults, so this year we have added a feature that will offer to update those taxes for you. If you are using California taxes and want the program to update your State tax to 1990 for you then access the Configuration option, and select State Taxes. Once you get past the introductory screens, if the program detects that your State Name begins with CA and the tax method selected is also CA then it will pop up a screen offering to update them for you, you can reply Y or N. Once you reply Y you will not see that particular screen again. This is for California users only. It will not affect other State's. We cannot promise to do this every year, it depends if our California manual arrives on time. Because of the number of States we do not plan to extend this feature to other States at this time. PAYING EMPLOYEES WHERE YOU DECIDE TO CALCULATE TAXES MANUALLY --------------------------------- As a new feature this release, if "COMPUTER TO CALC TAX" is set false (on hours entry screens) then when F8 is pressed from the pay detail screens, and when the pay cycle is run, your manual tax entry is checked and you are advised if you have any differences greater than 10% or $5 from the amounts the program would have calculated. It still allows your figures to be used, it just tells you it it looks like you may have an error. A similar check is done on FICA / FUTA / SUTA entries when new users start PAYROLL USA part way through a year by transferring figures to the YTD screens from an existing payroll system. TAX REDUCTIONS FOR IRA's ------------------------ We have changed the way the "DEDUCT IRA" line works. It used to be a regular deduction, like any other, with no special tax treatment. We previously suggested increasing the number of W-4 allowances (exemptions) to cause reduced income tax for IRA's. We had several requests to make "DEDUCT IRA" automatically reduce income for tax calculation purposes, so this year we have done that. Just Federal, State and Local income tax will be affected. If you were previously increasing the number of exemptions for an entry on this line you no longer need to do so. An entry on this line will not affect FICA / FUTA / SUTA. If they are also to be reduced check out the notes on the second of the employee tax set up screens. If you have more than one IRA type plan that employees contribute to you could use the IRA line for one of them and one of the other deduction lines for the other. In this case the IRA on the other deduction line would still need additional exemptions to reduce tax as the program would not recognize it as an IRA. TAX ON BONUS'S -------------- We have also changed the way the "ANNUAL BONUS" line works. It always gave special tax treatment to entries on this line in recognition of their non repetitive nature, i.e. they do not need to be multiplied by the number of pays per year, as the remainder of the pay is, before calculating annual income tax. However, the previous formula we used relied on the "ANNUAL BONUS" being processed at the same time as a regular pay, the regular pay being used to establish the correct tax bracket for the bonus. We had some users processing bonus's in separate pay cycles and not getting the correct tax calculation (because there was no regular pay). We have changed the formula so that if the bonus goes through on its own, the tax bracket is estimated from the hourly rate and the number of hours normally worked in a year and the amount of any previous bonuses already paid that year. So, now it should be possible to process bonus's on their own or in combination with regular pay, whichever you prefer. LARGE BONUS PAYMENTS -------------------- We had a couple of reports of fatal error messages from users putting through large bonuses (in excess of $32,767.99 in one pay period). This can happen when the owner of the company takes a nominal salary until he knows how the profits are going for the year then pays himself a substantial bonus towards the end of the year if profits are high enough. The problem arises when the 10 pay history screen is updated. We never anticipated such a large amount all in one pay so did not make the history record big enough to hold it. The remainder of PAYROLL USA can handle it just fine, so we have fixed the problem by making $32,767.99 the maximum amount that will be shown on the pay history screen. If the amount is greater than $32,767.99 it will be processed just fine now, no more fatal error, it will however show as $32,767.99 on the 10 pay history screen. The 10 pay history screen is the ONLY place it is reduced to fit, it will show as the full amount in the YTD figures, checks, payroll register, journal, etc. The other solution would be for you to break down such large bonuses into a series of smaller payments (less than $32,767.99 each) and process them in seperate pay cycles. CHECKS AND PAYSLIPS ------------------- A minor change has been made to stop HOURLY RATE printing for SALARIED employees who have no hourly based pay items. It will still print if they have overtime etc. We have also changed the check line up routine. The previous X in the box was hard to see, and not every forms manufacturer puts a line up box on the check, so we now print a complete dummy check instead for line up purposes. The check form is available from a number of different forms manufacturers and you are still free to purchase it wherever you like. However, we are recommending DELUXE COMPUTER FORMS & SUPPLIES in St. Paul, Minnesota. They have plants across the country and they have a toll free order line 1-800- 356-7552 or 1-800-328-0304 (or for FAX 1-800-336-1112). You need Multi- Purpose Check #091004, mention our keycode CO5778 (letters CO, numbers 5778) when calling to ensure they give you the right form. Prices of 1 part checks are about: 250 - $37.95, 500 - $49.95, 1000 - $69.45, 2000 - $105.70. Checks with multiple copies (2 part, 3 part) are also available at extra cost. Your name etc. is imprinted on the check. There is also a matching double window envelope, if required, size 8 5/8 x 3 5/8, form #091500: 250 - $15.95, 500 - $28.45, 1000 - $48.70, 2000 - $80.95 SCRAMBLE (DATA ENCRYPTION) HAS BEEN CHANGED ------------------------------------------- We have distributed SCRAMBLE.COM with PAYROLL CANADA for some time and some users like it to keep employee data confidential when others may have access to their computer. However, using it has been a pain in the neck. So, we have replaced it with SCRAMBLE.EXE which is easier to use, so we are now also making this available to our PAYROLL USA customers. USE IS OPTIONAL. The new program is run automatically when PAYUSA starts, but ONLY if it detects that you are already using encrypted files. If you previously used SCRAMBLE.COM do not use that program anymore, just start PAYUSA from the DOS prompt with the employee files still encrypted. It will ask you to use the new SCRAMBLE.EXE from the distribution diskette instead. SCRAMBLE.EXE may be copied to a different diskette, but do not use a diskette that already has SCRAMBLE.COM on it. Keep it on a diskette rather than copying it to the hard disk (for greater security - the diskette can be locked away). If your old SCRAMBLE.COM was run from a DOS batch file, you do not need that batch file any more. If you did not previously use SCRAMBLE and wish to start then try these DOS commands with the disk containing SCRAMBLE.EXE inserted in drive A: (SCRAMBLE.EXE is on the first of the two distribution disks - the one with the "hi-liter" on the label). C: { OR WHEREVER THE DATA DISK IS } CD \PAYIN { OR WHICHEVER IS THE INPUT DATA DIRECTORY } A:\SCRAMBLE ENC Just for this first time, when it asks if you are encrypting Payroll files reply N CD \PAYOUT { OR WHICHEVER IS THE OUTPUT DATA DIRECTORY } A:\SCRAMBLE ENC Just for this first time, when it asks if you are encrypting Payroll files reply N C: { or wherever the program disk is } CD \PAYPGMS PAYUSA For more complete information on SCRAMBLE, just run it with no parameters. Example: A: CD \ SCRAMBLE MULTIPLE CONFIGURATION FILES ---------------------------- We have several users who have multiple configuration files and are currently starting PAYUSA from DOS batch files that rename the required configuration file to PAYUSA.CNF on the way in, and rename it back to its original name on the way out. Well, now you can forget the DOS batch files. Leave your existing configuration files alone and just start PAYUSA directly instead of starting your batch file. If PAYUSA finds more than one configuration file (*.CNF) on the program directory it will ask you which one you want to use. Two reasons for having multiple configuration files are: 1. Multiple companies. Example, accountants doing client payroll. 2. Multiple pay periods. Example, manual workers paid weekly, office staff paid bi-weekly, management paid monthly. All in the same company, probably have traditional reasons for doing it, but the payroll department are never free of doing a payroll. Previous versions of PAYROLL USA required that all employees in one file have the same pay frequency which means each group had to be in separate data directories and therefore each had its own configuration file on the program directory (which amongst other things specifies where the employee data directories are located). If everything else about the employees is the same (other than the data directories) they could now be combined into one file (see below). If you do not presently use multiple configuration files (and most do not need them), but feel that for one of the above reasons you do need them, then simply rename your existing PAYUSA.CNF file to SMITH.CNF or PAY26.CNF where Smith or Pay26 is any name that is meaningful to you. Next time you start PAYUSA it will ask you to select which configuration you want or to enter 0 to start a new configuration file, then it will handle everything, including data directory set up, for you. MULTIPLE PAY FREQUENCIES ------------------------ I have been surprised by how many user's have multiple pay periods so I made provision for PAYROLL USA to handle them on one file. If it detects that not all pay frequencies are the same it will ask you which one(s) you wish to access for this update or this pay cycle. You may select any or all of them. Only the ones you select will be accessed or processed. If you get any unexpected results, exit back to the main menu and re-start as all pay periods are re-scanned from the index each time the employee update program or the pay cycle program are started. Your existing index will not contain pay frequency information, but it will be added the next time the index is rebuilt (each pay cycle, or if it is otherwise deleted). If it causes any problems that re-starting does not solve then just delete the PAYUSA.INX file from the input data directory for these employees (usually \PAYIN), which will force it to be rebuilt. One point to watch with multiple pay frequencies all on one file is the year end close out at end 1990. This takes place when, after the entry of the pay cycle dates, if the next pay date is in a different year to the current pay date AND IT APPLIES TO THE WHOLE FILE IRRESPECTIVE OF PAY FREQUENCY. Be sure not to enter the next pay date in 1991 until the very last 1990 pay cycle is being processed. Example, if the last bi-weekly pay is 21st. December 1990, next pay 4th Jan 1991 but you still have the monthly paid people due for pay on 28th. December then do not show the bi-weekly next pay date as 4th. January. Make it some date in December (it doesn't matter which, so let's say 31st. December). Then when the monthly pay is processed with next pay date 28th. Jan. 1991 the whole file will be closed out (bi- weekly too). The only side effect of this is that the hours entry screens for the bi-weekly people will have 31st. Dec. 1990 in them when it relates to 4th. January 1991 pay. That may look odd, but it does not matter and does not need to be changed as that date is replaced in the pay cycle with the current pay date entered at the start of the pay cycle. COMBINING EXISTING EMPLOYEE FILES --------------------------------- If you have multiple employee files SOLELY because of multiple pay frequencies and now would like to combine them you can give it a try. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COMBINE THEM, and if there is anything else different, example different account numbers or different hours per year in the Configuration, then you should not combine them. Unfortunately, I did not get time to write a program to combine existing employee files but you could try the following. It should work but ONLY if (i) there is no duplication of employees between files (ii) all data files are on the same disk (iii) the last pay cycle has been made permanent in each set of files (iv) there are multiple *.CNF (configuration) files on the program directory. There is no checking being done here, except for duplication in the re- indexing, so even if it seems to work keep the existing separate files for a few pays so you can go back to them if you have to. You do not have to do this and we offer no guarantees if you do. Assuming you have existing files \PAY26\PAYIN\PAYUSA.DTA and \PAY12\PAYIN\PAYUSA.DTA, and you have two configuration files PAY26.CNF and PAY12.CNF (substitute your own names if not). 1. Start PAYUSA from the DOS prompt (not from a DOS batch file). 2. When it asks you to select a configuration file, enter 0 3. When it asks for the name of the new file, enter ALLPAYS 4. When it asks if you want to copy defaults press Y and select one of the existing configuration files (Enter PAY26 or PAY12) 5. Verify or change company information that is displayed and anything else you are not sure of in the Configuration. 6. Escape all the way back to the DOS prompt. 7. Enter the following DOS commands at the DOS prompt: { DO NOT ENTER THE COMMENTS IN CURLY BRACKETS } PROMPT $P$G { SO YOU CAN SEE WHERE YOUR ARE } C: { OR D: WHICHEVER IS THE DATA DISK DRIVE } CD \ALLPAYS\PAYIN { MAKE THE NEW DIRECTORY THE ACTIVE ONE } COPY /B \PAY26\PAYIN\PAYUSA.DTA + \PAY12\PAYIN\PAYUSA.DTA PAYUSA.DTA {input 1} {input 2} {output} ERASE *.INX { PROBABLY WILL NOT EXIST, BUT TO BE SURE NO INDEX } ERASE PAYUS941.DTA { PROBABLY WILL NOT EXIST, BUT TO BE SURE } Be sure to enter commands EXACTLY as shown. The /B parameter after COPY is vital to prevent files being truncated. Note it is a regular slash, /B, different to the backslash used in the filenames. The + parameter between the two input file names causes them to be concatonated (the second is added to the end of the first) to form the third (the output file). We must then be sure that no index exists as we wish to force a new index of the combined file to be built next time PAYROLL USA is run. Do not copy the existing indexes, just the PAYUSA.DTA files. The 941 / 940 / State Unemployment information is stored in file PAYUS941.DTA, but unfortunately that file cannot be combined with others by the above method, it needs a program to do it and there was no time to write one. Trust me when I say it cannot be combined without a program. If you try the above method it will appear to work, but the results will not be what you expect as PAYROLL USA will only recognise the first part of the combined file. If you combine PAYUSA.DTA employee files using the above method your new file will have to start by building its own PAYUS941.DTA file from scratch, all prior PAYUS941.DTA history will be lost as far as the new combined file is concerned. From that point on, when you start PAYUSA and it gives you a choice of configuration files, select the ALLPAYS choice. You could use some other name than ALLPAYS, whatever is meaningful to you, maximum 8 characters, but if you do then substitute it for ALLPAYS wherever ALLPAYS appears in the above instructions. If you need help with combining files please call, but bear in mind my time will be billable (at $50.00 hour) if I am on the phone for more than a few minutes, and all long distance telephone charges are at your expense (I will call back collect if I am not immediately available). OTHER CHANGES ------------- There have been internal changes in the programs that are not visible to the user. Source code libraries have been restructured. The programs have been re-compiled with version 5.5 of Turbo Pascal (from Borland International). Routines for printing or displaying documentation have been improved, an edit has been added to stop you from adding a new employee if less than 16K of disk space remains (because we had a couple of people who filled up their hard disk then wound up with a partial employee record which caused indexing problems and needed special programming to remove). We have also given you an opportunity to exit from the pay cycle and from the year end if you find yourself in there by mistake. TEXT DISPLAY ------------ The programs display text by directly writing to screen memory rather than calling DOS or BIOS to do the writes. This is for speed of screen update and works well in computers that are fully IBM compatible. If your computer has the screen at a non standard memory address, or if you have some other reason why you want the programs to use DOS / BIOS to write the screens then try starting up PAYUSA with a command line parameter of BIOS, example C: CD \PAYPGMS PAYUSA BIOS The programs also auto detect the presence of a color video card and will try to use color if one is found and if color has not been set to Black and White in the Configuration. Sometimes a monochrome monitor is attached to a color card and the text becomes illegible. You can fix this with the DOS MODE program before starting PAYROLL USA, e.g. MODE BW80 should do the trick, or you can start PAYUSA with a command line parameter of BW, example C: CD \PAYPGMS PAYUSA BW or you can combine both command line parameters if needed, e.g. PAYUSA BW BIOS DOCUMENTATION ------------- The PAYUSA.DOC documentation file has not yet been updated for the new version, we ran out of time. However, the Slide Show has been greatly extended and now to a large extent replaces the earlier documentation. WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU LOOK AT THE SLIDE SHOW AND SELECT THE OPTION TO PRINT IT. It can be reached from the main PAYUSA menu or you can run it seperately from the DOS prompt with C: CD \PAYSLIDE RUNSLIDE SPREAD THE WORD =============== Personal recommendations count for a lot in the business world. Probably 90% or 95% of businessmen have never heard of ShareWare and so will not otherwise be aware of the existence of PAYROLL USA until we make it available with a glossy manual in a pretty box in computer stores (at much higher prices). If you have any friends who might need a payroll system please pass on a copy of the ShareWare distribution diskettes, or at least give them our name and phone number so they can give us a call to ask for current prices and to arrange for Registration of a copy. Christopher Anthistle, President, 29th. December 1989