Available for: Basic Payroll customers and Full Service Payroll Customers who have not completed their payroll tax filing setup.
If you are a Full Service Payroll Customer who has completed the tax filing setup, you can find your 941, state withholding filings, SUTA filings, and local tax filings in your tax filing packet. Please see, “Viewing Your Company Tax Filing Packet,” for more information. |
Definitions:
Form 941 (Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return): The IRS form employers use to report federal income tax withheld from employee paychecks, as well as the employer and employee shares of Social Security and Medicare taxes (FICA). Form 941 is filed with the IRS four times per year.
Basic Payroll: The Patriot Payroll plan where you calculate payroll and manage employee pay yourself, but you are responsible for paying and filing your own payroll taxes. Patriot does not file or pay taxes on your behalf under this plan.
Full Service Payroll: The Patriot Payroll plan where Patriot handles payroll tax payments and filings for you.
Deposit schedule: The IRS-assigned schedule (monthly or semi-weekly) that determines how often you must deposit your federal payroll taxes. Your deposit schedule is based on the total taxes you reported in the prior lookback period.
Form 941 Deadlines
Quarter 1 – 4/30
Quarter 2 – 7/31
Quarter 3 – 10/31
Quarter 4 – 1/31
💡When the end of the month falls on Saturday, Sunday the due date is delayed until the next business day.
How to Download Your Pre-filled Form 941
Patriot provides Basic Payroll customers with a partially pre-filled Form 941 PDF based on your payroll data for the quarter. To download it:
Go to Reports > Payroll Tax Reports > 941s
Select the year and quarter for the form you want to download.
Click Download. A partially completed Form 941 will download to your computer.
You can also download instructions to complete your Form 941.
Click the downloaded file to display and complete the form. Unless you have a full version of Adobe, you cannot save the information typed into the PDF form. You can type and then print the form for your records. You may also handwrite information on the printed form.
If you need to print only specific pages of Form 941 (e.g., pages 4–5), open the filing packet, click Print, and specify the desired page range.
What is pre-filled: Patriot pre-fills wage totals and tax withholding amounts calculated from your payroll data.
What you must complete yourself: Because Patriot does not deposit your taxes, several fields require information only you have:
The total amount of federal taxes you deposited with the IRS for the quarter line 13
Your deposit schedule (monthly or semi-weekly depositor)
Your tax liability breakdown in Part 2 of the form
For Schedule B (daily tax liability breakdown by pay date), run payroll tax liability reports to determine liabilities for each payroll date and manually transfer these amounts to Schedule B, ensuring totals match Form 941. Patriot does not supply the Schedule B.
Your signature and date
See the full IRS Instructions for Form 941 for further help. Also check out our blog article How to Fill Out Form 941: Your Step-by-step Guide for more information.
Additional Tips
To verify payroll amounts for a quarter, use Reports > Payroll Reports > Payroll Details, set the date range, and group by totals.
Also see Basic Payroll Customers: Completing Form 940 instructions for filing your annual Federal Unemployment Taxes for the year.
Troubleshooting and FAQs
Missing Quarters in Dropdown: If Q1 does not appear, it may be because no payrolls were processed with Q1 pay dates. Without payroll data, the form will not be generated.
Employee Termination: Terminating an employee does not affect quarterly tax filings, including Form 941.
Employee Count on the 941: The IRS wants a report of the number of employees who worked during the date of
March 12
June 12
Sept 12
Dec 12This is the only time the PAY PERIOD and not the PAY DATE matters to the IRS.
For instance, a company has paid 4 employees in the month of March. Three of the employees were paid with a pay period of 3/1- 3/13. A total of 4 employees for the pay period of 3/14-3/29. Because only three employees worked on or through 3/12, the 941 would report "3" in line one of the 941.
What if I am an Agricultural Business?
Patriot does not supply or file IRS form 943 for agricultural businesses. If you need form 943, we suggest you use our basic payroll and manually fill out IRS form 943 on your own.