Books Cleanup for Small BusinessWage liabilities, named or absent
A month with wages and no liability line is not closed. A month with no employees does not invent one.
Say who was paid.
Two honest answers.
Either someone was paid as an employee, or nobody was. Both answers are useful. The first means the packet has to name what is still owed for wages, withholding, and the employer side. The second means we will not draw a liability just so a checklist looks complete.
Payday itself is arranged on a full provider that you run. We stop at the handoff, and we will not rename that stop into running the payday. The work on our side is the registrations, the account map, and the moment we turn it over. After that, you and the provider carry the deposits and the filings.
The early hour before the shops.
Before the door opens, the person sweeping the floor might be you, or the first hire. That quiet hour belongs to the shop. Only the hire creates a wage line. A customer who paid early, or a friend who helped for an afternoon, does not become staff because they were in the room.
Say whether anyone was paid as an employee in the month you care about. If the answer is a contractor instead, that belongs on the information-return page, not in a wage liability.
What the liability line is allowed to say.
When someone was an employee, the line can name wages earned and not yet deposited, amounts held back from the paycheck, and the employer side that sits on top. If the provider you chose has already deposited those, the packet says so. It does not invent a second liability so a checklist can look full.
Setup means those accounts exist before the first payday, not after a letter arrives. The registrations, the mapping, and the handoff are the work. After the handoff, the deposits and the filings stay with you and with that provider.
Say who was paid
Employee, contractor, or nobody. One sentence is enough.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.