Deducting and remitting foreign worker fees

As more producers hire foreign workers to alleviate the labour shortage, payroll entries and remittances become more complicated. You can set up a foreign worker deduction for where you must remit a portion of the employee’s wages to a liaison office or embassy.

To set up the deduction so that it’s available when building your employee profiles:

1. Select Setup>Payroll. The Payroll dialogue box appears.
   
   
2. Select Deductions from the left menu panel and click Add. The Add Deduction dialogue box appears.
3. Enter the name of the deduction in the Deduction name field.
4. Ensure that the This deduction requires a remittance check box is selected. 
5. Click the  icon to open your liability account list. The Select Postable Account – Liabilitydialogue box appears.
   Note: You need a liability account to store the deductions from when they’re deducted to when they’re remitted to the appropriate agency. If you’ve already created the liability account, skip to Step 7. If you need to create an account, click Add. The Add Accountdialogue box appears.
6. Enter the Account number of your Source Deductions Payable Primary Account (for example, 2310) and select Sub Account as your account class. Click Create Account.
7. Enter the name of the deduction in the Account description field and click Save. The Select Postable Account – Liability dialogue box reappears.
8. Select the appropriate liability account and click Select. The Add Deduction dialogue box appears.
9. Leave the Employer rate field as zero (.00) because there’s no employer portion for this deduction. 
   Note: The CRA Source field should indicate Custom Deduction.
10. Change the Deduction grouping tag to something relevant to the deduction and remittance you’re creating. For example, in this example we’re using the Barbados Liaison Office so we’ve used BARas our tag.
11. Click Save.

To add the deduction to the appropriate employee profiles:

1. Select Employees from the left menu panel of the Payroll dialogue box and either:
   • click Add to set up a new employee profile
   • select an existing employee profile and click Edit
2. Select the Pay Types, Benefits and Deductions tab.
3. Under the Deductions table, click the  binoculars icon. The Choose Deductions dialogue box appears, showing a list of deductions that are currently set up, but aren’t attached to the employee profile.
4. Select the deduction you set up for the liaison office and click OK.
   Note: The deduction is now attached to the employee profile and will appear when you’re  creating paycheques for that employee. 
5. Click Save to return to the Edit Employee or Add Employee dialogue box.
   Note: With AgExpert Analyst, you can set up custom deductions as a percentage of wages so that the amounts are calculated automatically.  To do this, select % in the Type column and then enter the percentage in the Amount column.
6. Click Close.

To create a paycheque that includes the liaison office deduction:

1. Select Payroll>Create Paycheques. The Payroll dialogue box appears.
2. Select the appropriate Pay cycle and enter the Pay period and Paycheque date.
3. Select the employee you want to create a paycheque for and click Create Paycheques. The Create Paycheque dialogue box appears.
4. Enter the Reference information.
5. Enter the information needed to calculate gross pay (for example, the number of hours worked).
6. Click Save.
   Note: You’ve created a paycheque that’s ready to be recorded. If you don’t have any other paycheques to enter for this pay period and all of your payroll entries are correct, then select the created paycheque and click Record. Your payroll entry will officially be “on the books.”

To generate the remittance report for your custom deduction and forward the withheld funds to the appropriate agency:

1. Click Remit. The Process Payroll Remittance dialogue box appears.
2. Select the Use deduction tag check box and select a Deduction grouping tag. Any outstanding remittances will appear in the Remittance for the month of drop-down menu.
3. Click Generate to open the remittance report for the deduction tag and month you selected.
4. Review your remittance report for errors.
   • If the report isn’t correct, close it and click Cancel. Then make any necessary corrections. 
   • If the report is correct, print a copy for your payroll files and close the report to return to theProcess Payroll Remittance dialogue box.
5. Change the Charge to field to point an Accounts Payable Supplier appropriate to the agency you remit the funds to.
6. Click  people icon to open the Accounts Payable Suppliers dialogue box. 
7. Select the appropriate contact. If you haven’t created the contact, click Add to open the Add Account dialogue box and create it.
8. Click Select.
9. Click Save to clear the payroll liability account and create an accounts payable charge against which you can enter a withdrawal and write a cheque payable to the liaison office or other appropriate agency.

Last updated on September 13, 2016 by FCC AgExpert