Company-level contributions let you show the money your business pays toward employee benefits. This article explains what a company-level contribution is, what to know before you set one up, and how to add, edit, inactivate, and delete a contribution in Patriot Payroll.
Video Walkthrough
The video walks through adding a contribution at the company level with explanation of fields in the contribution settings. The article below covers this topic in detail.
What is a company-level contribution?
A company-level contribution represents the employer's cost of a benefit. It is a helpful way to show employees the additional amounts your business pays on their behalf, such as the company's share of benefit premiums, a 401(k) company match, or company HSA contributions.
Company contribution amounts typically do not affect the employee's earnings, although there are rare instances where company contributions affect taxability of certain taxes, such as S-Corp Health Insurance, company contributions to 401(k) in certain states,
What to know before you set up contributions
You must set up a contribution at the company level before you can assign it to individual employees.
Patriot Software does not send your collected deductions and contributions to a third party, such as your 401(k) provider or health insurance carrier. You are responsible for sending these funds directly, unless you have a 401(k) set up with Vestwell.
For information about employee payroll deductions, see Company-Level Deductions in Patriot Software.
How to add a new company-level contribution
Go to Settings > Payroll Settings > Deductions & Contributions.
Click the Add New link under the Contributions section.
Fill in the contribution fields. For more information, see Company-Level Contribution Set-Up: Field-Level Help.
Accounting Software customers: choose an expense account and a liability account for your accounting integration.
Click Save. Once the contribution is set up at the company level, you can assign it to your employees. See How to Add or Edit Employee-Level Contributions.
How to edit a company-level contribution
Go to Settings > Payroll Settings > Deductions & Contributions.
Click the Edit icon in the contribution's row.
Make changes in the appropriate fields. If a contribution has already been used in a payroll, the For Deduction and Method fields cannot be changed, but all other fields can still be edited.
Click Save. If you edited a company default field that is used on an employee's record, the employee's contribution updates automatically.
How to make a company-level contribution inactive
Go to Settings > Payroll Settings > Deductions & Contributions.
Click the Edit icon in the contribution's row.
Uncheck the Active box.
If the contribution is tied to an employee, you will see a message warning that inactivating it will also inactivate it for all employees who have it. Click Yes to confirm, or No to cancel.
Click Save. If the contribution is a company default field used on an employee's record, the employee's contribution is made inactive automatically.
How to delete a company-level contribution
You can only delete a contribution that has not yet been used in a payroll. If the contribution has been used, make it inactive instead.
Go to Settings > Payroll Settings > Deductions & Contributions.
Click the Delete icon in the contribution's row. If the contribution has been used in a payroll, the Delete icon does not appear.
Click Yes to confirm.