What's covered in this guide?
Please note that this option is currently only offered in the United States.
What is a deduction?
Deductions are used to take money from an employee’s gross pay, based on agreements between the business and employee, or if it’s genuinely beneficial to the employee.
Common examples of deductions include:
Health Insurance Premiums
Retirement Contribution
Medicaid
Repayments of purchases made through the company
Access deduction types
Access deductions through Payroll > Payroll Settings > Deduction Types.
Create a deduction type
Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Settings > Deduction Types and click the + New button.
When creating a new deduction type, enter the following fields:
Name (as it will appear on the payslip)
Journal account (choose from any accounts set up in your journal)
Use the tick boxes to confirm if the deduction reduces tax
Click the Create button once finished to save the new deduction.
Here are practical examples of when these boxes would be ticked or not:
✓ Tick Example: An employee's health insurance premium paid through a Section 125 Cafeteria Plan before tax calculation, reducing taxable income and FICA/FUTA taxes.
✗ Do Not Tick Example: A garnishment like child support payments or court-ordered wage assignments, which are typically post-tax deductions and do not qualify for pre-tax or Section 125 treatment.
The key distinction is whether the deduction reduces taxable wages before tax calculations are performed, which applies to specific benefits like health insurance, dental, vision, and certain retirement contributions.
Select the W-2 Classification (the live link in the product labeled "Employer Guide" will take you to the IRS documentation needed to make the proper selection.
When you click create, the system will return the Configured Deduction Types, you can check you new deduction from this screen.
Assign deductions to employees
Once a deduction has been created, add it to the profiles of the applicable employees.
Navigate to the Staff tab
Select the employee from the list
Click + Add next to the Deductions section
Select the relevant Payroll deduction type from the drop down list
Enter the Fixed amount or Percent of Income to be taken when the deduction is applied
Click the Create button
There are many different scenarios when deductions are applied. In some instances the deduction would be based off of a flat or fixed dollar amount and in other scenarios it may be a percentage of either a premium or an employees income. If you are unsure, please check with your benefits administrator to understand how this may be described in a plan document.
How deductions appear on pay runs
After assigning deductions to relevant employees, the deductions will appear on their pay runs.
To view the applying deductions:
Navigate to the current pay run through the Run Payroll tab
Select an employee from the list included in the pay run
Scroll down to view which deductions are applying, what account they’re paid out of, and the amount being deducted
How deductions appear on payslips
Employees with deductions applying to their wages will have this clearly visible on their payslips, including the deduction type/name and the amount.
Payslips can be previewed in each employee’s individual pay run summary.
Find the Deductions section under Tax.