** This article was originally sent to our Bennett/Porter clients via email on 4/9/2020 **

There has been no shortage of information in the last couple of weeks regarding COVID-19 and the Federal mandate about paying employees who are sick with the virus, have been ordered to stay home to self-quarantine, or have a family member who is affected by the virus and who the employee must take care of. Despite all of the information, there are still many outstanding questions employers are encountering as they administer the processes around this mandate.

On December 19^th, Sage is scheduled to release an Interim Release Download (IRD) with year-end program updates for Accounts Payable and eFiling – as well as a Tax Table Update for 2020.

It's quarter end again, which means - among many other tasks - that it's time for Oregon employers to submit reports to the state for the Oregon Statewide Transit Tax. For Sage 100 Payroll users, we previously provided a method for storing Oregon Statewide Transit Tax information in Sage 100 Payroll. Subsequently, we developed a process and a pair of Crystal Reports that can be installed in Sage 100 for getting the information out of the Sage 100 Payroll module so that it can be transferred to the State of Oregon via Revenue Online, the Oregon Department of Revenue's site for tax reporting and payment. Since this process is done only quarterly, we thought refreshing your memories with the steps might be welcome. Those are below.

On December 19, year-end updates will be posted to the Sage Customer Portal for customers to download. These updates will include the 2018 Interim Release Download (IRD) for Sage 100 Versions 2016, 2017, and 2018 as well as the 2019 Payroll Tax Table Update for Sage 100 versions 2017 and 2016. These updates will be available for Sage 100 clients who have a current Business Care Plan or Sage 100cloud Subscription.

Below is new and additional information about these updates so that you can be prepared in advance to either download them yourself or schedule an appointment for Bennett/Porter to install the updates for you.

On December 19th, Sage will release a year-end Interim Release Download (IRD) with program changes for Accounts Payable and Payroll, as well as a 2019 Tax Table Update. Please note that the IRD and Payroll Tax Table Update are available for only specific versions of Sage 100 and Sage 100cloud; so please keep reading to find out which versions those are!

In June, we provided a method for collecting your Oregon Statewide Transit Tax information in Sage 100 Payroll. This approach involved storing the tax collection data in Sage's State of Oregon 'Employee SDI' field, since the State of Oregon doesn't have SDI tax. Now it's time to submit reports to the state for this tax, and you'll need to get the information out of the Sage 100 Payroll module so that it can be transferred to the state via Revenue Online, the Oregon Department of Revenue's site for tax reporting and payment. We've come up with a way to make this process as easy as possible.

Sage Software will only be updating Sage 100 version 2018 and Sage 100Cloud version 2018 to accommodate the new, statewide Oregon Transit Tax, which goes into effect on July 1 of this year. As we mentioned in our preview last month, the Transit Tax is 0.1% of each and every Employee’s Withholding Wage, is to be reported quarterly, and is reported on a separate form that is not part of the Oregon OQ Quarterly filing. For Sage Payroll clients on versions 2014, 2015, 2016, or 2017 (or even older versions!), we’ve had to be creative to accommodate the new tax. For clients using Sage Payroll version 2018, you’ll receive the update automatically through the new 2018 Tax Engine at month end.

Sage has released a program fix for Sage 100 Payroll that addresses the issue of employee counts being artificially increased when employee renumbering is performed. This issue can cause clients to get pushed up into the next Payroll pricing tier.

The update is only needed if you are on one of the following Sage 100 versions:

• 2016, Product Update 4 or 5
• 2017, Product Update 1 or 2

Sage 100 Payroll clients must update their software license keys prior to April 30th to ensure there will be no interruption in the functioning of the Payroll module.If your Sage 100 software displays a Payroll Subscription Expiration date of 4/30/2017, your Payroll module will be put in a read only mode by Sage after that date unless the license key is updated (meaning you will not be able to enter any new data in the module - you'll only be able to view historical data). Sage 100 program logic allows Sage Software to limit use of the Payroll module to only those clients with a current Payroll subscription who have also applied an update to the license key.

Sage has just announced that the Interim Release Download (IRD) and the Payroll Tax Table Update for Sage 100 are now available. Here are some things you should know about installing them.