Beginning Balances for Employees

Related topics

Enter employee beginning balances

Enter after-the-fact payroll information to print employee W-2 forms

Set up an employee

Set up a sales representative

Set up common payroll deductions

Perform other payroll tasks

Read the employee setup overview

Read the employee defaults overview

To enter beginning balances for each employee record, select the Beginning Balances button on the General tab of the Maintain Employees/Sales Reps window. Entering your employee beginning balances correctly ensures that your monthly, quarterly, or year-end reports will print correctly. You can enter a beginning balance for each new employee and edit it at any time—it does not affect the general ledger. It is advisable to enter beginning balances for employees before entering any payroll transactions.

The toolbar at the top of the window contains the following buttons: Close, Save, and Help.

Employee ID: You can select another employee who has had no transactions posted by using the Lookup button at the side of the entry box.

Dates: These are the dates of the pay periods for which you'd like to see the history on the employee. Because you probably won't be starting Sage 50 at the beginning of the year, here are some suggestions on how to enter information to get the correct quarterly and year-end reporting of the employee's earnings. Right-click in the Date field to choose a date.

As an example, let's say you want to use Sage 50 at the beginning of the 4th quarter:

  • If you were using a computer system and have already printed out reports and statements for the previous periods, you could enter the balance for each field into one period—say Jan. 1 to Sept. 30. Then enter any pay periods that have occurred after the start of the quarter to make sure your payroll reports are correct.
  • If you were in the previous situation, you could also enter the first three quarters as three separate pay periods.
  • You could also enter each of the pay periods in the year, but entering all the amounts would be a long and tedious process.

Payroll Field Amounts: Enter the amount for each employee payroll field. You define the payroll fields under the Employee tab of Employee Defaults. Enter all deductions as negative amounts, and earnings as positive amounts.

Note: You can use the scroll bar at the bottom of the period box to view your periods. Select the scroll button and drag it until you see the period you want. You can also press the right or left arrow key to move one period at a time right or left.

When you're finished filling in the window, click Save.