1. US Payroll Year-End Processing Guide
  2. Understanding Year-End Workfile Creation

Understanding Year-End Workfile Creation

After you have defined the criteria for the workfile, you create the year-end workfile. A year-end workfile gathers the information that you need to print government forms and year-end reports, and to create the workfile for electronic filing

When you run the workfile build process, the system creates records in the year-end control tables. These records contain the year-end ID and the year that is being processed, along with additional tax information. Each time that a workfile build is processed, the system edits these control tables and deletes any records that contain the same year-end ID and year as the workfile build that is being processed. The control tables are then repopulated with the records that the workfile build process creates.

When you submit the workfile build for processing, the system creates these employee-level records:

  • Employee Federal Control Table (F07830), which is a single federal control record that contains any taxes that are withheld.

  • Employee State/Local Control Table (F07831), which is a single state (territory) control record that contains any taxes that are withheld.

  • Employee Special Handling Control Table (F07832), which is a single record for each PDBA that contains special handling codes for the employee.

Important: To avoid loss of data, back up all year-end control files after you have printed the year-end forms. Also, you should use unique year-end IDs within each calendar year to process separate groups of employees.

After you process the workfile build, review the work online and correct any errors before you begin printing audit reports and year-end forms.

Note:

When you create the year-end workfile, the system prints a report of negative amounts that are included in the workfiles. This report specifies the employee number, company number, PDBA code, tax area, tax type, and amount. You must correct these negative amounts, reset the year-end ID, and rerun the workfile build. If an employee has a negative amount, the workfile build does not create a W-2 for that employee. The IRS and SSA do not allow you to report negative amounts.

The system generates the Negative Amount Error report (R07811), which displays any negative wage and tax errors. If no negative wages or taxes exist, the system prints only a report cover page.