Create EFTPS Payroll Tax Deposit File

Use this screen to create the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) Payroll Tax Deposit File based upon the employee and employer social security and Medicare totals and the federal income tax withholding totals that are contained in the tables of the selected reporting sources.

The program adds the amounts in the reporting sources and performs no other calculations. The process does not verify that the amounts are correctly calculated. For example, if an employee's social security withholding is not the correct amount, according to the current year's rate, the process reports the amount that is in the record, rather than the correct amount. For this reason, it is a good idea to ensure that the amounts are correct before performing this process.

The Payroll Tax Deposit File is a single text file that you can submit to the IRS electronically after each payroll, monthly, or quarterly. Transmit the file to your financial institution one business day before the due date. Your bank electronically submits the tax payments on the tax due date and your records for the IRS are automatically updated. This file is directly related to the Federal Form 941 and reports social security taxes, Medicare taxes, and federal income taxes withheld. You can use records from the Payroll table and/or Earnings table, depending on your reporting requirements.

After you have set up your financial institution information on the Configure Direct Deposit screen, you can create the EFTPS Payroll Tax Deposit File.

After you have created payroll, reviewed the Payroll Edit Report, and printed paychecks and/or direct deposit advices, you can generate the Payroll Tax Deposit File that contains the payment information to be transmitted to the bank for the tax period for which you are reporting, if you have selected Payroll Table in the Reporting Source group box. You must create this file before posting the Payroll Journal. After the Payroll Journal is posted, the data required for creating the Payroll Tax Deposit File is no longer available unless you select Earnings Table in the Reporting Source group box.

There are two ways to work with export files in Costpoint:

  • You can save the file to an Alternate File Location.
  • You can save the file to the Costpoint database.

If you decide to use the first option, click in the File Location field to select the alternate file location to which you want to save the file. If you choose the second option, leave the File Location field blank when you export the file.