Welcome To NannyPay News
Volume 2, Issue 2 (December 2005)
It is intended to provide household employers and NannyPay users with information about employment issues, tax tips, NannyPay software tips, and other items of interest in a brief, easy-to-read format.
If you have any comments or suggestions about our newsletter, please let us know by emailing us at: newsletter@essentia-soft.com. We look forward to your feedback.
NannyPay® 2006 Staff Edition Makes Its Debut!
Yes, it's finally here. Essentia Software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of NannyPay Staff Edition, our multiple employee enhancement of NannyPay classic software. NannyPay Staff Edition features full multiple employee capabilities and other enhancements suggested by our customers, such as payroll check printing. Unlike NannyPay classic, the Staff Edition stores employer and employee settings and all employee transactions in a single XML data file, making it unnecessary to create new data files each year as NannyPay classic requires you to do. Among its enhancements, Staff Edition's all new report generator permits you to run completely customizable withholding and liability reports for both active as well as inactive employees.
NannyPay Staff Edition is perfect if you employ more than one person, or if you expect to hire or replace another employee during the year. Tax professionals will also find NannyPay Staff Edition to be a useful tool for handling multiple employer clients.
Download NannyPay 2006 Staff Edition and take a free test drive for 30 days or upgrade now.
NannyPay® 2006 Available for Immediate Download
NannyPay 2006, our classic software, is now available for immediate download. NannyPay 2006 incorporates all the latest federal and state tax tables. If you are registered subscriber, simply download NannyPay and install it. You should not require a new registration key so long as your subscription has not expired. If you are a registered customer and you are installing NannyPay 2006 on a new or reconfigured computer, email us at register@nannypay.com and we will promptly send you a new registration key.
Closing Out the Old Year
We recently emailed some year-end tips to all our customers. In case you missed them, here they are again:
- Closing out 2005. As this year ends you may be wondering about how to close your 2005 payroll records. When the calendar turns to 2006, NannyPay 2005 will automatically "lock" your 2005 payroll transactions, that is, NannyPay 2005 will not permit you to enter any transaction dated "2006" in your 2005 payroll file. This will ensure the integrity and accuracy of your 2005 records. You may continue using NannyPay, but you will have to start a new payroll transaction file for your employee (select "New" under NannyPay's "File" menu). To keep your tax tables up-to-date, we strongly recommend upgrading to NannyPay 2006 (see below).
- You must update NannyPay 2005. To assist with your year-end tasks, the latest release of NannyPay 2005, which is now available, contains two updated reports for the 2005 tax season: Schedule H and Form W-2. These reports are not essential, but will conveniently summarize your payroll data for manual completion of the forms. The Schedule H report will also provide you with a more accurate calculation of your FUTA liability than does the FUTA estimate generated by NannyPay's "Employer Liability Report." The latest release of NannyPay also permits you to print a completed Schedule H, which you may file with your federal tax return. You must have Adobe's free, Acrobat® Reader (version 4.0 or higher) installed in your system for this feature to work. You may obtain the free reader from www.adobe.com. You may download the last interim update to NannyPay 2005 from Essentia's web site. Remember, you must have the full version of NannyPay 2005 already installed on your system before installing this update.
- Don't forget your employee's Form W-2 and your Form W-3. In 2006, the federal government requires you to prepare and give your employee(s) a 2005 Form W-2 (by January 31, 2006). By February 28, 2006, you must also file a W-3 and copies of all W-2s with the Social Security Administration. The latest release of NannyPay 2005 will permit you to print federal forms W-2 and W-3 on IRS approved, machine-readable forms, which may be purchased by visiting Essentia Software's web site at www.nannypay.com, or at most stationery stores or form suppliers. Please understand that we have only tested our forms for NannyPay compatibility.
- File your federal Schedule H by April 17, 2006. Your 2005 Schedule H should be included with your personal tax return when you file it (typically, by April 17, 2006). Be sure not to forget your state filing and reporting obligations, if any.
- Don't uninstall NannyPay 2005 right away. You should be using NannyPay 2006, not NannyPay 2005, for wages paid in 2006. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend that you do not uninstall NannyPay 2005 until you have completed your 2005 tax filings (typically, before April 17, 2006) and reporting. NannyPay 2006 has a new file structure that will not permit you to open your 2005 payroll records. It is, therefore, handy to have NannyPay 2005 and NannyPay 2006 installed side-by-side until tax time is over.
- Make a "hard copy" of your NannyPay 2005 records. Before uninstalling NannyPay 2005 we also recommend that you preserve your 2005 records by printing copies of all the reports and your individual payroll transactions ("Print Registers" under the "File" menu). Alternatively, you can archive your 2005 records by securely backing up your payroll files along with a copy of the NannyPay 2005 full installation package (so that you can read the files in the future, if necessary).