Produce File and Forms

The BusinessPlus Year-End Update includes three utilities to produce W2s and/or the electronic submission file to the federal government. Depending on what process is run (produce Fed file, paper W2s, or electronic W2s), the W2 Update Report Definition (PYW2UP) page may need to be updated before launching the job.

The following four settings on the PYW2UP General Information tab control the output of each W2 processing utility:

1. Produce Forms on Laser Printer?

2. Produce File for Federal?

3. Produce File for State?

4. Produce Forms?

The table below offers an overview of the different settings per utility.

Running W2s to EO overwrites the Fed file on the App server if the Produce File for Federal? box is selected on PYW2UP.

Paper vs. Electronic W2s

When printing W2s, you must decide how to differentiate between employees who will receive paper W2s vs. those who will receive an electronic version within Employee Online.  

Employee Online users can select to opt out of receiving paper W2s by selecting Opt-out of receiving paper W-2s on the W2 page in Employee Online. When this box is selected, the Payroll Employee Definition (PYUPEM) page, Switches tab, will be updated with a Y in Switch #31 – Suppress W2 Prt. If the box is left cleared in EO, Switch #31 will be blank.

All supported versions in the Year-End Update check the Switch 31 setting, so clients may use that switch to mark employees that have opted out of receiving paper W2s (populate the switch with a Y). 

Alternatively, a work-around method that involves the use of Skill Code fields in PYUPEM can be used to mark Opt Out employees; the Skill Code settings can then be referenced in selection criteria when processing W2s.

In the example below, Skill Cd 1 is used to mark employees to receive paper W2s (PW2) or electronic W2s (EW2). Run the SQL statement for whichever scenario is more prevalent at your site, then hand-update the others: 

• "PW2" in Skill Code 1 for paper W2s

• "EW2" in Skill Code 1 for electronic W2s 
  update hr_pe_mstr set py_emp_skill_cd01 = "EW2"

When producing paper or electronic W2s, reference the Skill Cd settings in your selection criteria before launching the job. 

Produce Fed/State File

1. Use the following settings in PYW2UP for your description file when generating the electronic submission file to the federal government.

   1. Produce File for Federal?

   2. State?

2. Run PYW2BT and review for errors/warnings.

3. Run PYW2PW to create the Fed file. Use the default "PC" (Select entire pay cycle) setting in the “How would you like employees selected?” field to create the file for all employees.

4. The electronic file will be named W2FEDxxA (where xx = last two digits of the tax year) and is saved to the /admin/data directory on the App server.

   1. Keep in mind that the file will be overwritten each time PYW2PW is run with Produce File for Federal? selected on PYW2UP for the definition file that was used. Therefore, save a copy of the file outside of the /admin/data directory after verifying the data is correct.

5. Review the file using AccuWage (review the AccuWage Software section for more information).

Print Paper W2s

1. Use the following settings in PYW2UP for your definition file before running PYW2PW to print paper W-2s

   1. Produce Forms on Laser Printer?

   2. Produce Forms?

2. Run PYW2BT and review for errors/warnings.

3. Load blank (PDF Printing) or pre-printed paper.

4. Specify the Forms printer.

5. Run PYW2PW. If Skill Cd fields are used on PYUPEM (review Paper vs. Electronic W2s), use the selection criteria to print paper W2s for selected employees. To check alignment of the data on the W2 form and/or to check overflow data, it is recommended to print a few W2s first, before submitting the entire print job.

Produce Electronic W2s

Check/verify the following settings in PYW2UP:

• Produce Forms on Laser Printer?

• Produce Forms?

Use PYW2EOSE utility to process W-2s to Employee Online.  As of 23.5.1.0 this is no longer a two-step process.  Before running this make sure the setup for Documents Online is complete as defined in the “Employee Online Setup for W-2” section.

PYW2EOSE: Run PYW2EOSE to create the W-2s and send the forms to Documents Online.  Enter the name of the Description file as defined in PYW2UP. 

The process does include both those who opted out of a printed form as well as those who will receive a printed copy.

If “Also send forms to DO?” was checked when you ran PYW2PW you can skip running PYW2EOSE when sending the forms to EO. 

If the "Mask SSN" option is checked, all social security numbers on the form will be masked as ***-**-1234 and only show the last four digits. The full SSN will be reported to the IRS no matter what option is chosen to send to EO.

Documents Online Options

Under Options for PYW2EOSE, users can select if they would like to process Individual Employees or create an Archive Copy.  The default is set to EM (Individual Employees), and the system generates a W2 for each employee that was included in the PYW2EOSE process. When AR (Archive Copy) is selected, a next question, Who to include in the Archive appears. Select one of the following options:

• AL: All selected employees

• NP: Those who opted out of print

• PR: Those who wanted printed copy

When submitted, BusinessPlus stores an archive copy of the selected W2s into a single document (ID) in Documents Online.

 If you are on version 25.5.0.0 or below you still need to run PYW2EOAT to have the Archive show up in Documents Online even though it will not be linked to any given employee. 

Check the PYW2EOAT tail sheet to locate the Document ID for the archived PDF file.  (No longer need PYW2EOAT as it is built into PYW2EOSE if on 23.5.1.0 or later.)

Use the Document ID to view the file in the Administrative Console by entering the ID in the DocId field of the Document Search plugin.

Display W2 Forms in Employee Online

Log into Employee Online and go to the W2 Info link under the Pay Information section. The W2 form for the year is located there. The name of the link is identical to the name of the form defined in Documents Online.

Known W2 Limitations in Employee Online

These are known limitations with displaying W2s in Employee Online:

1. The W2 in Employee Online only shows the form with W2 data. It does not show a W2 instructions page.

2. When an employee is employed by multiple tax reporting Entities within the BusinessPlus system (for example, an Office of Education setup), the regular printing of W2s will produce a W2 per tax reporting entity, as it should. In Employee Online, only one of these W2s will show.