Closing the Year

The following information is covered in this chapter:

• Year-End Close
• Archiving the Year

Year-End Close

The Year-end Close process allows you to delete (or purge) specific payroll files for specific payroll periods. The Year-end Close process can also delete all of your payroll records, if you choose.

Before closing out your 2006 payroll year, be sure to make a complete backup of all your 2006 pay history records and generate all the related and relevant payroll reports you need from those records.

You are not required to close out your payroll records at the end of the year! The payroll program does allow you to keep your prior year payroll records within the payroll program forever. Consult your CPA in regards to the appropriate amount of prior year payroll data you need to maintain.

Closing payroll for the year

1. Select Utilities > Purge Data...

An alert message will display. Review the message and then click the Continue button to proceed, Cancel to exit.

After clicking the Continue button, the Purge Data dialogue will display.

Depending on which payroll program you are using, some options will be grayed out.

2. In the Delete section check the appropriate boxes:

Pay history records

The program will permanently delete the employee payroll records. The employee name and address information as seen in the Employees tab window will remain intact.

Time card records

By checking this box, the program will delete stored records containing the employees In and Out times. This box pertains only to users using the Aatrix Time Card and Time Card Remote features.

Check Register

If checked, the program will delete all paychecks in the payroll check register. If you have more than one register, you can click in the pop-up box and choose the register you would like to remove the information from.

Liability Register

Marking this box will delete detailed information about each payroll liability you have created in the program. Like the check register, you can click the pop-up box to choose a specific liability register to purge or an option to purge data from all registers.

FSA Register

The Flexible Spending Account register is a feature available only in Ultimate Payroll and Top Pay. Checking this box will remove information regarding the employee flexible spending accounts, such as health insurance. Clicking the pop-up box will display the option to purge data from a specific FSA register or you can purge data from all registers.

For the time period

In this field you can set the program to delete records before a certain date by entering a date in the field or have the program delete all pay history records by marking the radio button.

From the employee(s)

You have the option to remove information from a specific employee list, the Master Employee list or a specific employee (the one selected prior to accessing this window).

It is recommended that you use your Master List for this process. The program will delete only the.RECS file (contains the payroll records) and.LOGS file (contains Time Card information), if selected in the previous step, of each employee on the list.

3. Click the Continue button.

An alert message will display asking if you wish to continue.

4. Click the Continue button in the alert if you choose to purge your data and close out the year for Payroll.

Archiving Files Annually

A good way to maintain the integrity of your records, as well as keeping your company a manageable size is to archive your company file each year and start a new company. By following the instructions below, you will be able to easily create a company for each calendar year, with no re-entering of your company data.

Archiving Files Annually

1. Restore your most recent backup as a new company, preferably with the year in the name. (e.g. Rock Castle 2006). Refer to Chapter 13 of your payroll User Manual for more information.
2. When your new company has been created, purge all records dated before current year. (e.g. 1/1/05). Refer to Chapter 13 in your User Manual for details.

When the records have been purged you will be left with your employees and a clean slate! The Pay History, registers and all other data will be cleared, allowing you to start a new record for the new year.

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The information in this guide is subject to change without notice. Please note that the Year-end Guide is basically generic, but it will always have the primary information geared to the latest version of the Payroll Series software available for that year. Check the Aatrix website for updates.