Take a moment and think about some words that you associate with year end. Stressful? Lengthy? Intimidating? Annoying? Do any of those words come to mind? At Mosaic, we make it our goal to turn a strenuous process into something effortless for you and your team. Here are 6 steps to leverage UKG Pro for a year end with ease.
Click below to watch our webinar on year end:
Click here to download webinar slides used during presentation.
Before we get started with the steps, here are a few basics to consider. First, the 2021 UKG Pro year end checklists are already available for you so you can cross your t’s and dot your i’s. You can find the checklists in the Customer Success Portal. Second, make sure you are staying up to date with year end announcements, along with UKG updates. Third, UKG now offers W2 print services on a first come first serve basis, but if you choose to print your own forms in house, make sure to order them ASAP.
1. Company Info & Process
Let’s get ready for year end! First, find out who is issuing W2’s for your 3rd party pays, such as sick pay, and make sure you know who to contact to get the correct information to include in your process. Second, make sure that you have all your employee’s unique ID’s (like Social Security Numbers) listed in UKG, you can run a quick report in BI to look for any errors… no one wants to make the government cranky. Third, determine that all your earnings and deductions have the correct tax category attached, which is going to be for new-to-2021 codes, unless this is your first year in UKG. Lastly, if you have never done year end at your company, or this is your first year doing it with your current tax processor, reach out and make sure you know what the process is. Early communication is key to the success of year end!
2. Verify Company Info
Verify employee’s names, addresses, SSNs, suffixes, prefixes, etc. It’s been a weird couple of years, so it might be a good practice to send postcards to all your terminated employees asking them to verify their current addresses. Remember, a lot of people moved during 2020 and 2021, so you want to make sure you have everyone’s current address. This is true for any employee (current or former) who worked during 2021. Another thing to consider is reminding employees of the availability of electronic W2’s and the expected timeline for paper forms. With the chaos of the holidays and the already present mail backlog, it’s important your team is informed on what to expect, and where they can find the information, they need.
3. Prep The System
Now that your employee information is correct, it’s time to get the system ready! First, create your holiday calendar for payroll to tell the system what day to move payroll to when there is a holiday on payday. Once you do this, you can extend your pay calendar into 2022.
Next, update the holiday calendar you just created in your timekeeping system. Last, create a supplemental pay dated 12/31/21 for each of your pay groups so you have a place to post any last-minute adjustments, even if you don’t use this you will be happy you have it when you need it.
4. Year End
IT’S THE END OF THE YEAR! Now what? You’re going to process your final regular payroll of the year! To do this, make sure you have all your adjustments in and remind employees that they need to update their W4 forms if they have a change in status or if they are claiming exemption from withholding. Within the Employee Withholding Forms tab (under System Configuration > Taxes) there is a new section for Exemption Expiration. You can send an email to all employees who are claiming Exempt from Federal Income Taxes reminding them to file a new form, and you can even have the system automatically flip an employee to Single 0 if a new form isn’t filed by the deadline.
5. It’s The New Year. Why Are We Still Calling It Year End?
You’re almost done! If you have tipped employees, you will be importing gross receipts and processing tip allocations. After that, it’s time to generate year end tables, which you will process last minute. Finally, you will run the tax liability and wage summary reports to make sure they look correct before the deadline of January 12th for UKG.
6. Post, Submit, & Mail
Guess what? You just finished your year end, and you won’t have to think about this for another 12 months (ish). Relax, document what you did and what you can do better and have a drink!
See, it wasn’t that bad! At Mosaic, we want to assure and lead you through this process with ease so you can lend a little more focus to which ugly Christmas sweater you are planning on wearing this holiday season. If you have any further questions, reach out to us at info@mosaic-cg.com or (615) 732-0774.
Interested in learning more about Year End? Check out some of our previous blogs here: