When we were trying to prepare W-2s the medicare wages do not match the Box 1 wages. This only happened on 2 of 5 employees and we got an error message. How do we correct? None of our employees have deferred comp.
There are two issues. You received an error message, so you need to figure out what that means. That may take a call to Payroll support.
To verify and correct your W-2s so that you can distribute them, this is what you can do. First, run a payroll summary by employee and calculate what the actual wages should be. Box 1 can be reduced by Cafeteria 125 deductions and qualified retirement contributions. Box 3 has a maximum wage base of $102,000 for the year. It can also be reduced by Cafeteria 125 deduction. Box 5 (Medicare Wages) can only be reduced by a Cafeteria 125 plan.
If you have no plan, then the employee's Gross Wages should be shown in Box 5. Now that you know what SHOULD be there, go into the payroll forms module, open your draft for W2s and go to the affected employees. Right click on Box 5 and scroll to "override." You can now enter the correct wages. You will also need to balance the W3 with all 4 quarters Form 941.
