Tips to setup Coronavirus (COVID) paid leave in Microsoft Dynamics GP

Well, if the 2020 W4 was not enough for us to learn this year and tip us over the edge, we now have to think about how your company needs to start tracking for the Coronavirus paid leave?

We are starting to get many questions around the Family First Coronavirus Response Act legislation (FFRCA) and how to set this up in Microsoft Dynamics GP. 

It is hard to do one blog that works for everyone as you may be using different ways to track your time.  Honestly, I do not feel this is something you need to 'purchase' to track.  This is supposed to be temporary and you have many tools with Dynamics GP that allow for it today without any code changes.

Right now there is NO planned tax table changes needed for Microsoft Dynamics GP.  Instead checks will be directly mailed to employees with the Economic Impact Payments.

Based on the guidelines there is no need for any 'CODE' changes or updates for Microsoft Dynamics GP.  You can track COVID pay in your system today by following information below.

Here are some of the basics we need to think about when tacking COVID paid leave:

1. Setup new pay code / time codes to track this time for your employee using your existing tracking tools/program.  This could be a holiday pay code pay type or if you want it to reduce an available balance, use sick or vacation pay type.

From what I have been reading up on, it looks in most cases the employee will be taxed, so we want to make sure on the pay code it is subject to tax, refer to IRS COVID FAQ.

Example but not required
COVIDS – Holiday Pay Type based on REG - Straight Pay rate for the 80 hours sick
COVID2 – (for the care of others, part of the 80 hours) 2/3 pay
COVFM – (for the FMLA leave) 2/3 pay

For the 2/3 pay what some customers are doing and it works well is an OVERTIME pay code pay type with a factor of .67

2. Employer Tax

In the FAQ it also states the paid leave should be the following:

Employer portion of Social Security tax should NOT be withheld. And then the employer portion of the Medicare tax withheld will be credited back to the employer, along with the paid wages and employer portion of health insurance paid, when the employer makes their federal tax deposit or completes the Form 7200.

In Dynamics GP there is not an option to tax employee and employer separately for FICA.  We have 1 checkbox for all on the pay code and there are no plans to change it at this time.  We do track them separately in our tables which is GREAT news!  This is stored in the UPR30100 check history table by check date employee detail and in summary by audit trail code in the UPR30200 table. 

The UPR30200 table you can see by going to Tools | Utilities | Payroll | Edit Liabilities
I'm highlighting Medicare below, but Social Security is also listed in this window/table.
                                               

The detail by check run is a bit hard to see as it is not listed on a default report writer report or Dynamics GP window.  I have created this view that pulls from the check history table for you, UPR30100 and will allow you to run this in SmartList and export to Excel as needed.  

Where I have TWO put your company database ID

Use [TWO]
GO
 
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
 
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
 
 
CREATE VIEW [dbo].[COVID] 
AS
 
select 
a.EMPLOYID, A.FRSTNAME as EmployeeFirst, A.LASTNAME as EmployeeLast, A.EMPLCLAS as EmployeeClass,
A. DEPRTMNT AS DEPARTMENT, A. JOBTITLE AS POSITION, A.STRTDATE AS STARTDATE, A. DEMPINAC AS DATEINACTIVE, 
b.GRWGPRN as GrossWage, b.FICASSWP as EMPSSWAGE, b.FICAMWGP as EMPMEDWAGE,b.FDWGPYRN as EMPFEDWAGE,
b.FCASWPR as EMPSSWLDG, b.EFICASSWH as EMPLOYERSSWLDG,
b.FICAMWPR as EMPMEDWLDG, b.EFICAMWPR as EMPLOYERMEDWLDG,
B. CHEKDATE AS CHECKDATE, B. POSTEDDT AS POSTDATE,  
B. AUCTRLCD AS AUDITTRAIL

 
from UPR30100 B (nolock)
 
 
join UPR00100 A (nolock) on a.EMPLOYID=B.EMPLOYID
WHERE YEAR1='2020'
 

Run the above in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
Go into GP
From SmartList click the NEW button, give it a list Name, Example COVID
Go to the bottom expand out VIEWS, expand COMPANY
Find the VIEW COVID and Mark all the columns, OK out, run the SmartList

Note: Many of the Employer amounts you may already see on your payroll posting journals that will help you too

3. Since you setup up new pay codes to track this information, you can easily run the employee pay history report by pay code and date and get the amount of pay for these codes and also back into employer tax.  Reports | Payroll | History | Employee Pay History.  Restrict by date and names of codes you created in Step 1.

4. Also in the IRS COVID FAQ, employers can be immediately reimbursed for the credit by reducing their required deposits of payroll taxes that have been withheld from employees' wages by the amount of the credit, thus not having to wait for 941 filing.

5. If you want to reduce your FICA Medicare Employer Amount Paid, this could be done through Manual Checks as an example below.  Transactions | Payroll | Manual Checks.  This will update Payroll and GL for tracking.  It could be a lot to enter this for each employee.  But as suggested in forum post below, this could be tracked as a lump sum amount on a FICAMED Employee ID if you wanted to go that route.  Here is a great blog on the details of processing a manual check if it is new to you.  You can do this similar process with Social Security code if you want.  Medicare is shown in the example below.

Note: 

Manual checks has 3 check types. Manual Check, Adjustment, and Beginning Balance each check type will update differently in Microsoft Dynamics GP 

Manual Check: Will update Payroll, Bank Rec, and General Ledger
Adjustment: Will update Payroll and General Ledger
Beginning Balance: Will NOT update Bank Rec or General Ledger

Reference forum posts from Community 
Ideas how to quickly assign and create pay codes includes scripts
GPUG forum post around COVID tracking ideas from many users
Attend GPUG COVID Payroll webinar April 16 to hear from others

Thanks

Terry Heley

Microsoft