Note: FFCRA tax credits and deferrals are no longer valid. They were valid only until the end of 2022.
The FFCRA Tax Credits and Deferrals: What you need to know article goes over the credits and deferrals offered as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), what they mean, how they're calculated, and how to determine if you or your employees are qualified for any of them.
IMPORTANT! The credits and deferrals should only be used with the advisement of a CPA or your accountant. Fingercheck cannot advise on whether your company or employees qualify for credits.
To receive the tax credits and deferrals, you must know how to pay the employees under these rules.
To accommodate this, Fingercheck offers special earning codes, tax codes, and deduction codes, which handle all of the related calculations automatically.
In this article, you will learn about:
Earning codes
The following FFCRA-specific earning codes have been added to Fingercheck:
FFCHLDCARE - FFCRA Child Care Credit
FFSICK - FFCRA SICK
FFSICKOT - FFCRA SICK OTHER
If an employee needs to be paid using these FFCRA-specific codes, you can do so while editing paychecks in Step 4 of running Payroll. Change the Earning Code that is automatically generated by the system to the FFCRA-specific Earning Code you need.
In your completed Payroll, you should see the appropriate FFCRA Credit appear in the taxes. Here is a comparison between how a $500 check looks normally versus with one of the FFCRA Earning Codes. Note the difference in Employer Taxes.
Additionally, you can use an Absence Policy to apply the Earning Code you need over a long stretch of time and/or across multiple employees. Make sure to set the Division Earning field to the appropriate Earning Code. (For more information, see How to Create an Absence Policy and How to Add an Absence for Employees.)
Tax codes
The following FFCRA-specific tax codes have been added to Fingercheck and all employees' profiles:
FFSCR - FFCRA Sick Credit
FFSOTCR - FFCRA Sick Other Credit
FFCHLDCARE - FFCRA Child Care Credit
You do not need to do any setup to enable these, and they will be calculated automatically when necessary. It is shown here for reference.
Deduction codes
Finally, new deduction codes are available. These are necessary to set up only if your employees receive health insurance from you, as the FFCRA Tax Credits take those Health Insurance amounts into account.
These deductions have not been automatically added to your Fingercheck company, since not all employers offer health insurance. You can reach out to our Support team for help at 1-800-610-9501.
Employee retention credit
The Employee Retention Credit has not been added to all employees' profiles since not all employers qualify for it. If your company qualifies for this credit, you must add this tax code to all of your employees.
Here is a walk-through on how to add this code to an employee:
From the Fingercheck Menu on the left side of your screen, go to Employees. Click on the employee's name to open up their record.
Go to the section Payroll > Taxes.
On the following screen, click the Actions icon at the upper-right. In the menu that drops down, choose "Add Tax Codes".
A pop-up will appear with a list of Tax Codes. Look for the tax code "FFRETCR - FFCRA Employee Retention Credit" and add it by clicking the checkbox to the left of it, then click the green Add button.
Social Security employer tax deferral
The Social Security employer tax deferral is also available in Fingercheck. To take advantage of this tax deferral, reach out to our Support line at 1-800-610-9501, and a live Support agent can assist you.
Frequently asked questions
When I change Earning Codes, the hours/amounts disappear from my view. How do I get those back?
By default, these new codes are hidden from the grid in Step 4 to avoid cluttering up the page. This is only visual, and does not affect the outcome of your employees' checks. To unhide those columns of the grid:
Go to the Setup tab > Payroll > Earning Codes.
Find the earning code you want to unhide, and click its name to edit it.
On the following screen, clear the checkboxes for the Hide Hours on Payroll Grid and Hide Amount on Payroll Grid options to turn them off.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen, and click Save.
Now, the amounts will have their own columns on the grid in Step 4.
I am getting the error "[name] has exceeded the annual limit of $X for FFCHLDCARE/FFSICK/FFSICKOT by $Y. The system automatically reduced the amount to the annual limit, please record the excess amount of $Y as a different earning code." I need to pay my employee more than that. What do I do?
This error occurs because annual caps are built into the FFCRA earning codes. If you hit this limit, edit the employee's check, and split up the remaining amount back into your normal earning code as follows:
Return to Step 4 of the payroll process.
You can do this by clicking the Previous button on Step 5, or you can return to the Payroll Dashboard and click Resume Payroll.
Find the employee who was mentioned in the error, and edit their check.
In the Edit Check screen, click Add to add a line.
Set the first field to RG - Regular or SA - Salary, whichever your employee's payments normally appear under.
Set the Amount field to the excess amount that was mentioned in the previous error.
Edit the the FFCRA Earning Code field, and subtract the excess amount from it.
Click Save, and continue with the Payroll process as normal.
In the example shown in the error above, we attempted to pay Mr. Gates $11000, which exceeds the limit for FFCHLDCARE by $1000. The screen should look this after it is corrected.
Thank you for using Fingercheck. If you have any questions on this article's topic, you can reach out to our team at 1-800-610-9501, or use the chat option below.