Payroll Help

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How to Enter Your Tax Deposit Frequencies

In this article:

Background

Each type of payroll tax has its own deposit frequency, which is how often the taxes are due to the tax agency, such as monthly, quarterly, etc. If you are a Full Service Payroll Customer, you will need to enter the tax deposit frequency for each type of tax that Patriot is depositing on your behalf, so that we can ensure your taxes are deposited on time.

What If I Don’t Know My Payroll Tax Deposit Frequencies?

Please see our help article, How Do I Find My Company Tax Deposit Frequencies? for help on where to look for your assigned deposit frequencies.

How Enter Your Tax Deposit Frequencies

  1. Go to Settings > Tax Service Settings > Tax Deposit Frequencies. 
  2. Federal Income, Social Security, Medicare:  Patriot defaults new accounts to a semi-weekly deposit frequency. For Federal deposits, there are no penalties for depositing taxes early, only depositing taxes late.
    • Only change this if you know how much federal tax your business owed during the IRS-defined lookback period of July 1 through June 30 ending the previous year. 
    • If your business owed less than $50,000 in federal tax during this period, your deposit frequency may be monthly.  If you owed more than $50,000, your deposit frequency is semi-weekly. Please see “Payroll Deadlines for Semi-weekly Tax Depositors.“
  3. Your Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) deposit frequency will be pre-set to “Annual due 01-31.” 💡 Patriot calculates and collects your FUTA taxes with each payroll. If your total FUTA tax liability for the year reaches over $500 by the end of any quarter, Patriot will automatically make a deposit at that time to ensure it’s paid on time, regardless of your set deposit frequency.
    • Change to “Quarterly” if:
      • your FUTA tax liability is more than $500 for the calendar year
      • you have already made deposits so far this year
  4. Your State Income Tax – Enter the deposit frequency assigned to you by the state. Please contact your state’s department of revenue if you don’t know what your assigned deposit frequency is. You will need to update your deposit frequency if you receive a notice by the state in the future.
  5. Your State Unemployment Tax (SUTA) will be pre-set to the correct frequency for your state.  You will not need to edit or change this.
  6. If you have any city or local income taxes, enter the frequency for each. Contact the local government agency if you do not know what your deposit frequency is.
  7. When you’ve finished entering the tax deposit frequencies, click Save Settings.

How Patriot Safeguards Against Late Deposits

If you are a Full Service payroll customer, and you have completed your Full Service setup, the software will warn you if you try to run a payroll that will not allow enough time to for Patriot to make a timely deposit. When this happens, you will want to adjust your pay date to avoid penalties and late fees. If you decide to override this restriction, you will be responsible for any penalties resulting in late deposits.

Please check out “Payroll Deadlines for Semi-weekly Tax Depositors.“

When Will My Taxes Be Collected?

As a full-service payroll customer, we will collect your payroll taxes as you run payroll. Typically tax collections are the first banking day before the pay date.

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