PSA Payroll - Setup: (7.2) How to set up payroll for a self-employed clergy employee

How to set up payroll for a self-employed clergy employee

Before you may set up a payroll employee, you must ensure you have all of the necessary pieces in place. You may benefit from reviewing our Help File Article on preparing your files for payroll processing. This will point to instructions ensuring the correct building blocks exist before you move into setting up this new employee record.

These building blocks include the Pay Item and the Gross Pay Account; as you can see in the image below, these building blocks are used on the Employee Information Pay Data Tab.

This article will show you the steps to take including how to set up the tax data tab

Employee Information Pay Data Tab

Steps

Determine which account you will use as the Gross Pay Account for this employee. You may need to add an account to your chart for this purpose. If your organization is under the authority of an organization that provides your Chart of Accounts, you will need to import the account. Otherwise, you may simply add the account. Click the following link to see an example of a gross pay account used for a Self-Employed Clergy Record. Once you have determined which Gross Pay Account you will use, make sure you set up the appropriate account distributions.
- You may also have additional Gross Pay Accounts for other Pay Items such as Housing and Health Insurance. All of the steps must be followed for these items as well. For tracking purposes, it is best to use a different Gross Pay account for each of these categories.
If one does not yet exist, you will need to create a Pay Item to use for Self-Employed Clergy. When you create this Pay Item, you may want to populate it with the Gross Pay Account you just added in step (1) above. This depends on if every record which uses this same Pay Item will also use the same Gross Pay Account. Click the following link to see an example of a pay item for clergy.
- You would need to create a Pay Item for each separate item such as Housing and or Health Insurance. Housing is generally Non-Taxable.
  
  Once the building blocks have been created, you may add the pay item line to the employee record.

The Tax Data Tab (shown below) is often set up differently for Self-Employed Clergy than for other Employees. This is because Self-Employed Clergy generally do not have taxes taken each pay, but still want to receive a W-2 for all taxable wages at year's end. If this is the case for your Self-Employed Clergy, follow the next instructions.

As shown in the screen below, it is best to mark Withhold Federal Tax & Withhold State Tax but then also to include a 0.00 override tax amount. Marking the boxes ensures the taxable wages are accumulated and a W-2 will generate at year's end. Adding the 0.00 override ensures that taxes are not taken each pay period. It is not necessary to mark the Withhold Social Security Tax or Withhold Medicare Tax for self-employed clergy.