Preparing Your Account for the New Year

Purpose: We would like to help you make sure that your account is ready for the new year and avoid getting caught with company holidays that do not roll over or benefit plans that expire. We want to help you avoid time-consuming mistakes to keep you ahead of the game as the calendar year closes and a new year begins.

BambooHR year-end preparation

Any HR administrator will tell you that there are many changes as the new year comes around. We have compiled some time-saving tips that will help you have a stress-free new year.

Did you know we have a BambooHR® Learning course about preparing your account for the new year? Click here to learn more about what this course includes.


Would you like to watch a video about this topic?

Heads up! BambooHR launched a newly refreshed UI, which means the product may appear differently in your account than what is shown in the video below. However, functionality will remain the same. Thank you for your patience as we continue to update our help content.


End-of-year deadlines

Updated end-of-year payroll deadlines are anticipated to be published in June of the current filing year.

The 2024-2025 deadlines are listed below. Please note that these dates are subject to change. 

Due Date Action Item Description Help Resources
September 2, 2024 Labor Day Bank holiday - may impact pay schedule pay date
September 26, 2024, 5:00 PM PST Current Quarter Void Deadline Deadline to process voids without needing an amendment
September 30, 2024 Tax Information & Third Party Access Information Due Tax information must be entered in BambooHR to avoid penalties.
October 7, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
October 14, 2024 Indigenous Peoples' Day & Columbus Day Bank holiday - may impact pay schedule pay date
October 21, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
November 4, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
November 7, 2024 BambooHR Company Update Limited BambooHR Support Representatives  
November 10, 2024 FUTA Credit Reduction Release Federal government releases list of states with credit reduction
November 18, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
November 28, 2024 Thanksgiving Day Bank holiday - may impact pay schedule pay date
December 2, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
December 9, 2024 W-2 Collection W-2 fees collected for 2024
December 9, 2024 1099 Collection 1099 fees collected for 2024
December 16, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
December 25, 2024 Christmas Day Bank holiday - may impact pay schedule pay date
December 27, 2024, 5:00 PM PST Current Quarter Void Deadline Deadline to process voids without needing an amendment
December 27, 2024 2024 Two-Day Wire and Standard Final Payrolls Due Last day to submit final payrolls to report in 2024
December 30, 2024 W-2 Preview Updated W-2 previews available within payroll reports for audit
December 30, 2024 Same-Day Final Payrolls Due Last day to submit same-day wire final payrolls to report in 2024 (Direct Deposit is not supported)
December 31, 2024 Tax Information & Third Party Access Information Due Tax information must be entered in BambooHR to avoid penalties.
December 31, 2024 1099 Print Elections Locked Deadline to update 1099 printing election
January 1, 2025 New Year's Day Bank holiday - may impact pay schedule pay date
January 6, 2025 FUTA Monies Sweep Sweep request will populate in BambooHR, if applicable
January 13, 2025, 5:00 PM PST W-2 Print Elections Locked Deadline to update W-2 printing elections for employees
January 14, 2025, 5:00 PM PST Employee Address Lock for Mailing Deadline to update employee addresses in BambooHR for mailing employee tax documents
January 15, 2025 Employee W-2s Posted Employees' W-2s available in their BambooHR accounts
January 15, 2025 W-3s Posted W-3s available within payroll reports
January 16, 2025 FUTA Monies Deadline Deadline to accept FUTA monies sweep, if applicable (will not pay if money not collected)
January 20, 2025 Martin Luther King Jr Day Bank holiday - may impact pay schedule pay date
January 31, 2025 Company Packages Posted Company Packages available within payroll reports
January 31, 2025 Printed W-2s and 1099s Mailed Deadline for printed W-2s and 1099s to be mailed

Time Off
Charlotte Abbott - Time Off

The beginning of the year may be the carryover date for some of your time off policies. Additionally, you may want to make some adjustments to your policy in preparation for the upcoming year. Take the following tips into consideration as you plan to make changes and prepare for the new year ahead. Should you have any questions about any of these items, feel free to reach out to our Support team to discuss your questions right away.

  1. Carryover dates: If the policy carryover date is January 1st, make sure you have selected that date in your policy settings. If you know that your policy will change on January 1st, make sure to schedule those changes for January 1st of the upcoming year. This help guide can show you the ins and outs of creating a time off policy, and the same applies to making changes to your existing policy.
  2. Carryover amounts: Have you anticipated carryover amounts for your employees? Once carryover has taken place, it may be helpful to review the Time Off Balances report to ensure carryover worked the way you planned it.
  3. Negative balances: If you allow "debt forgiveness" for employees who end the year with a negative time off balance, make sure you have this set up in the policy settings under the accrual options. Simply click the checkbox next to "Reset negative time off balance to 0 hours on carryover date" to do so. 
  4. Balance adjustments: If you use adjustments in manually updated balances for your employees, do you need to zero out balances at the end of the year? If so, you can run the Time Off Balances report to export end-of-year balances. This report shows balance information as of a specific date, and depending on how you are accruing time off, you may wish to change it to 12/31 or even 1/1. Our support heroes would be happy to help you make the best determination on this. Feel free to reach out! You can use our time off importer to mass import adjustments to zero out your employees’ balances.
  5. Who's Out calendar: Are you aware of which employees will be out during the holidays? The Who’s Out calendar helps you keep track of when employees will be out of office as you avoid having everyone out of office at the same time.
  6. Edit requests: We know there are always a lot of changes regarding when employees will be out of office during the holidays. Be sure to check out this help guide to learn more about how to modify or cancel requests.
  7. Scheduled requests: As we approach the new year, the system will still pull any requests for dates in next year’s calendar from the scheduled time off information. The Time Off Balances report allows you to see an employee’s balances during a specific date range so you can determine which requests are for the current year.
  8. Carryovers under time off policies: If an employee requests time off spanning the new year with a time off policy with no carryover (i.e., December 28—January 4), a negative balance will appear for the requested amount in the previous year, and a new line will get added to show the requested amount in the new year. The system still pulls the total requested amount from the employee's time off balance on the first day of the request. Be sure to check out this guide to learn more.

Benefits

Here are some quick tips to make your benefits enrollment process a breeze when using Benefits Tracking!

 If you are using BambooHR® Benefits Administration, click here for more information on how to manage enrollment renewals.

Open enrollment using Benefits Tracking

Select Health - Platinum

Is your open enrollment happening soon? If yes, review this help guide to ensure that you take the steps necessary for a smooth and easy transition of data in BambooHR. We equip you with some great tools to provide your employees with the information they need. Additionally, we have the reports you need to complete the process and check the accuracy of the reported data. Do not forget to use the Benefit Summary report to ensure that your updates are correct.

Plan expirations and renewals of current plans

If you are using BambooHR® Payroll, we recommend you follow these steps before your benefit plans expire.

Edit Medical Plan

Are your plans set to expire at the end of the calendar year? Thirty days and ten days before a plan expiration, the Account Owner, Full Admin user(s), and any user with access to Benefits will receive an email notification reminding them to update a benefit plan. This information is crucial because if you do not extend the plan's end date, the system will unenroll all employees from the plan in BambooHR. If you already know that you will extend the plan, take action now to avoid losing the email notification in your inbox.

To extend the plan's end date*, edit the benefit plan through Settings > Benefits > Plans. Extend the end date and save the plan for the changes to go into effect.

If a plan does not typically expire, you can extend its date by several years to avoid having the plan expire yearly.

IMPORTANT: Please note that you will need to extend the plan's end date before the actual end date if you want to avoid having all employees automatically unenrolled from the benefit plan. If you forget to extend the plan end date and the plan expires, you can reactivate the plan. Reactivation will restore all of your employees' vital enrollment information.

ACA requirements

ACA Settings

No one wants to think about filing taxes during the holidays, but now is the time to prepare to have all of this information ready to go for the tax season. We want to help you be prepared to manage the tasks required by the US Government and not get caught off guard.

This guide outlines several things that you may need to do as a qualifying employer that must meet ACA requirements. It will outline things like the following:

  • How to know if you are required to file ACA documentation
  • How to set up ACA reporting in BambooHR
  • How several ACA-related reports can ensure that you have the data you need to be compliant
  • How to download the 1095-C form with Part I automatically filled out based on information stored in BambooHR

Do not forget to review the various reports available to you through utilizing Benefits in BambooHR. From the Benefit Summary report to ACA reporting, we have you covered.


Holidays
Holidays

You can quickly and easily copy over the holidays from this year to the next. Many employees request time off during the holidays, so copying over your holidays for next year will help your employees know exactly which dates are a company holiday and which dates they need time off. Check out this guide on how to check off this task from your list within seconds!

Additionally, if you need to add a custom holiday, this video can guide you through the process.


Company announcements

Does your company have a company closure during the holidays? Do you need to advertise a company holiday party? Utilizing company announcements in BambooHR allows you to send messages to your employees en masse.

Add a new announcement

Renewal of company policies
Inbox (11)

Many policies and procedures need renewal as the new year circles around. When utilizing our e-signature feature, you can request these signatures from employees and have those documents stored electronically. This feature makes it easy for you and the employee to find signed documentation.

Check out our help guides for more information on creating a signature template, requesting a signature from an employee, and reviewing a report that shows you who has not yet completed the required documentation. Additionally, this FAQ page can help answer more questions you may have about e-signatures.


Reporting
Headcount

The end of the year is a great time to show your colleagues the magical reports you can run. These reports are concise and compile important data in such an interpretable format, which only takes seconds for you to run!

Some of our favorites are the following:

  1. Additions & Terminations: Easily view who has joined and left your organization over the past year.
  2. Benefit Summary: View how an employee's benefit status has changed over time. If you keep the same plan and just its cost changes from year to year, this report is a great way to go back and see how long the employee has been enrolled in the benefit plan (or unenrolled) and what the employee was paying for the benefit at various times.
  3. Employee Turnover: View helpful insights into employee turnover and filter data in varied ways to spot trends that will provide actionable insight into how the turnover occurred and to whom. This helps you become strategic in how you deal with turnover.
  4. Headcount: View how many employees were employed at your company on any given date.
  5. Missing Data: Ensure that your employee information is accurate and up to date. Check for missing addresses or job information to make sure you have the information you need!
  6. Time Off Used: This report allows you to see time off used by each employee, and perhaps, spot trends or patterns that can help you manage time off better.
  7. Time Off Schedule: With upcoming holidays or big events within your company, this report helps identifying upcoming requests and pending requests that still need approval.

BambooHR® Payroll year-end preparation

This information will help you make sure you have everything finalized in Payroll for a smooth transition to the new year.

These Payroll reports can be particularly helpful when reconciling your year-end information:

Click here to read more about other year-end reports available in BambooHR.

You must process final payrolls no later than December 27, 2024 with a pay date no later than December 31, 2024.

To help reduce year-end payroll corrections, we have created an employee tutorial—Updating Your Payroll Information. This tutorial is a great resource to share with your employees as it provides essential tips and best practices for keeping their payroll information accurate and up-to-date.

What should you do prior to your last payroll run this year?

  1. Submit your Third-Party Sick Pay (p.16) vendor statements to our Payroll Tax Services team via this form. Please note that Third-Party Sick Pay can be listed as TPS, Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability, Insurance provider Sick Pay, and STD.
  2. Review deduction reports to verify employee and employer amounts are correct (especially if required to be reported per the IRS Instructions for Forms W-2 or W-3).
  3. Update both active and inactive employees’ addresses and verify Social Security numbers are correct for W-2 processing. BambooHR Payroll mails all W-2s unless the employee has elected for paperless delivery (inactive employees will receive their W-2 by mail regardless of this option so be sure to validate their address).
    • Tip: You can run a report for W-2 Delivery Method to see what your employees have elected.
    • W-2s will be available in your account by the last day of January each year.
  4. Audit wage reports to ensure that any imputed income for the Group-Term Life Insurance Coverage (p.15)(over $50,000 of coverage) has been accounted for.
    • BambooHR Payroll offers a standard 'Extra Pay' type named "Imputed Income - GTL" for reporting purposes. When used, this pay type will map to box 12c on the W-2.
  5. Record any missing Taxable Fringe Benefits provided during the year (e.g. employee stock options, personal use of company vehicle, tuition, transportation, etc.).
  6. Ensure that  2% Shareholders paid through BambooHR Payroll have been marked as such under the General page for Employee Tax Type for correct taxation of income and excludable deductions. 
  7. Verify that any pay issued outside of BambooHR Payroll or non-cash items are reported (e.g. gift cards, bonuses, etc.). 
  8. Audit your reports to confirm that all voided or reversed paychecks have been recorded in BambooHR Payroll.
  9. Audit employee pay to ensure that wages and unemployment insurance were reported under the correct state.
    • Tip: The Complete Summary excel report in BambooHR Payroll can help you review this information.
  10. Audit W-2's: Use the BambooHR Payroll > Reports > Payroll Reports > Date Range reports > "Complete Summary by employee (columns) (No demographic)" report.

    Here are the columns to compare to the W-2 on that report:
    • Box 1: "Tax-federal-EE-wage"
    • Box 2: "Tax-Federal-EE"
    • Box 3: "Tax-social security-EE-Wage"
    • Box 4: "Tax-social security-EE"
    • Box 5: "Tax-medicare-EE-Wage"
    • Box 6: "Tax-medicare-EE"

*Items required to be reported following the final payroll deadline may incur additional fees.*

If you do not currently use BambooHR® Payroll and would like to learn more, click here. Clicking this link will immediately send a request to our Payroll team.


BambooHR® Payroll new year preparation

This information will help you make sure that everything is set up correctly in BambooHR Payroll before running your first payroll in the new year.

What should you do before your first payroll run next year?
  • Update company and employee deduction annual maximums if needed.
  • Review your pay schedules carefully to ensure that they are accurate with the calendar change. Watch out for additional paydays in 2024 that add a period to your frequency. Work with your tax advisor to determine and make any applicable adjustments.
  • Add any company holidays (if your organization uses this feature).
  • Add next year's tax rates, tax filing deposit frequency, and unemployment tax rates in the Company Tax tab. In addition to this information, please find BambooHR Payroll Tax Documents FAQs here
Federal holidays that affect payroll

Make note of federal holidays that may affect payroll due dates. You can review the federal holiday payroll due dates and pay dates in BambooHR settings under Payroll > Pay Schedules