Ascentis Blog

Information to help HR and payroll managers, recruiters, and compliance officers become more effective.

The year-end is nigh!

Fear! Panic! Overwork!

Ok, maybe that was a little over the top. The end of the year is a generally busy time for payroll professionals. Year end payrolls, quarterlies,  and benefits maintenance are just some of the things that have to be done before you can celebrate on New Year’s Eve. To help with year-end tasks, we’ve created a couple of wizards in Ascentis Payroll that guide you through a lot of the routine tasks. There are some tasks that need to be done outside of payroll, so we’ve created this handy list below to check before you run your last payroll of the year:

  • Verify SSNs. There may be IRS penalties for mismatched names/SSNs so avoid the tax man by going through your employee SSNs.
  • Got employees who recently changed their filing status? Make sure they’ve filled out a new W-4 (not necessary if you have Ascentis Self-Service!).
  • Verify employee addresses so W-2s go where they are supposed to.
  • Offering new benefits? Make sure deductions are setup for new offerings.
  • Got tax exempt employees? Make sure to get their W-4s in by February 15th so they can continue their exempt status through 2010.
  • Employees getting the Advanced Earned Income Credit (AEIC) for 2009 need to complete a new W-5 before the first payroll in 2010 in order to continue receiving AEIC.

There are other reconciliations (e.g. wage & tax, GL, Bank) that need to be performed as well. If you have any questions about year end with Ascentis Payroll, give your CSR a call today!

Can open enrollment really be painless?

OEThe short answer is “probably not”. The long answer would be “No, but…”. Lets discuss the “but” here.

Employees only see OE as being a short period during the year. For HR, its obviously a much longer process. From selecting the benefits package to making sure employees get their cards from the carrier, OE is a long and often times painful process. But (here’s where we start), some pains can be removed through the selection of a good HRIS.  Here are some things a HRIS (like ours…/shameless plug) can do to ease the OE pain:

  • Automatically determine eligibility so you don’t have to
  • Display plan information (like deductibles, co-pay), provider directories, and plan documents electronically so you can save paper and avoid questions (who needs interpersonal interaction when you’ve got Facebook?)
  • Send enrollment data directly to the carrier to avoid double data entry and costly enrollment errors
  • Strong reports to easily remit a carrier invoice to your own records

Are there certain pain points that you struggle with during OE?

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