Previous Payroll Provider Overview

If you are switching your payroll service to Toast Payroll mid-year, we will require certain information from you regarding earnings for the year for all current and former W-2 employees. Toast's payroll tax services start in the quarter in which you start running payroll in the Toast Payroll system. Toast Payroll will handle the annual filings for that whole year, which means that we need to gather the entire year's worth of payment and tax data. We're here to help make this as smooth as possible. Your Onboarding Consultant can assist you with this to determine the best approach for pulling information from your prior payroll provider.

Once you go live with Toast Payroll (after running your first payroll), you'll want to cancel with your previous payroll provider, if applicable. Failure to end services with a prior payroll provider could result in duplicate, inaccurate, and/or incomplete tax filings in future quarters and helps ensure your employees are not issued an incomplete Form W-2 from your prior provider. The Tax Center in Toast Payroll will notify you prior to your first quarter-end tax filing with Toast to ensure you have cancelled with your previous payroll provider

If you are switching to Toast Payroll from another provider mid-quarter, confirm how/when tax amounts that are due at the end of the quarter will be remitted to you. Toast Payroll will debit your payroll account within two weeks of your first payroll to ensure we can pay these on your behalf by the quarterly deadline.

Employee Information

Toast Payroll needs this information for anyone who has been paid under an FEIN in the current year, whether they are active or terminated. Terminated employee pay data is necessary in order for Toast to create the terminated employee's W-2 at the end of the year and for annual company level tax returns.

Required

Name
Address
Social Security Number (SSN): This is vital. Any missing or incorrect SSNs will need to be updated by the employer before quarter-end to avoid potential fees and/or amendments.
Employment Status: Active vs terminated
Email Address: An email address is required in order to create an employee profile
Date of Birth (DOB)
Positions/Jobs
Hourly Pay Rate or Salary
Location: Which location the employee works at
Hire Date/Rehire Date
Termination Date
Direct Deposit Information: If direct deposit information is not provided by this data or the employee prior to the first payroll, the employee will receive a live (paper) check
Employee W-4 Information: If W4 information is not provided, employee withholdings will be at the highest allowance
Garnishments/Recurring Deductions: If employees have garnishments/child support orders, these will need to be provided to Toast Payroll to ensure correct payment setup

Optional

Phone Number
Salary Effective Date
Gender
Marital Status
Employment Type: Full-time vs part-time
EEO Classification - Employment Equity Opportunity
Exempt Status/Overtime Eligibility
Termination Reason

Pay Data

Pay data falls into 2 categories: data from payrolls with a check date in the current quarter and data from previous quarters.

Pay Data Needed From Previous Quarters

Earning, deduction, and tax total amounts are needed for each employee in each previous quarter of the current year (i.e. if you are switching to Toast Payroll in Q4, we will need 3 separate files for Q1, Q2, and Q3). This info also required for each individual FEIN that is onboarding with Toast Payroll (i.e. if you have 2 FEINS, we will need one file per FEIN from each quarter). The data must be broken out by type/code:

Regular Hours/Salary Earnings
Overtime Earnings
Tip Earnings
Other Earnings
Social Security Tax
Medicare Tax
Federal Income Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Insurance (SUTA)
Federal Unemployment Insurance (FUTA)
Local Taxes (if applicable)

Pay Data Needed for the Current Quarter

In order to ensure accurate tax filings, we will need the same information as above for the current quarter, with the addition of:

Earning hours: These are any earnings that are paid at an hourly rate. We will need the hours along with the amounts. Some examples are paid time off or sick time paid at an hourly rate vs salary.
Check files: We will need a file for each individual check date ran in the quarter due to tax agency reporting requirements.

Tax Returns

We will need the following tax information (a quarterly tax package will usually have everything needed on this list):

A Form 941 and state unemployment return for each prior quarter of the current year for each FEIN
State withholding return, if applicable in your state
Local tax return, if applicable, in your state
If the above are not available for the most recent past quarter due to it being too early in the quarter and your prior provider has not finished filing, a wage & tax register or similar wage report will temporarily suffice. You will want to send over the actual returns upon receipt.

Direct Deposit Information

Please provide employee direct deposit information if you are switching from one of the following providers:

Automatic Data Processing (ADP Run)
QuickBooks
Square Payroll
Gusto

Once direct deposit information has been added into Toast Payroll, we highly recommend visiting the Direct Deposit status report by navigating to Settings > Payroll > Direct Deposit. Any employees who appear within the Employees with incomplete direct deposit information tile will be paid via paper check until their direct deposit information is added. You can send these employees an email nudge to encourage them to add their own direct deposit information or you can add it on their behalf. HR+ users will follow the instructions in the Add a Direct Deposit Account Manually (Without Plaid) section of Toast Payroll: Get Help With Direct Deposit Accounts or employees can follow the steps in the Add a Direct Deposit Account With Plaid section of the same article.

Instructions for Customers Using QuickBooks Desktop

If you are a QuickBooks Desktop user, access the following information and send it to your Onboarding Consultant in a .xlsx file (Excel). Follow the instructions below to access the required information in QuickBooks. We are here to help if you require assistance.

Employee Information
- Navigate to Reports > Employees & Payroll > Employee Contact List and customize the report to include all fields. It is important to make sure that the filter is not set to exclude terminated employees.
Direct Deposit Information
- Navigate to Reports > Payroll Center > Employees & Payroll > More Payroll Reports in Excel > Employee Direct Deposit Listing.
Tax Returns
- If you filed taxes through QuickBooks, your returns will typically be accessible here - Navigate to Employees > Payroll Tax Forms & W2s > View Tax Forms History. Select the desired form/quarter excel file.
- If you filed your taxes outside of QuickBooks, you will need to provide the following forms and submit them to your Onboarding Specialist: Federal 941, State Unemployment Return, and State Withholding return if applicable. If your targeted live date is in Q4, we will need a separate report/return for each prior quarter of the year (i.e Q1 and Q2).
Previous Quarter's Pay Data
- Navigate to Reports > Employees and Payroll > Payroll Summary. Set the date range to include each prior quarter (e.g. 1/1/23 - 3/31/23). If targeted go live is in Q3, we need this report run twice for Q1 and Q2 respectively). Then select Export to CSV (Create New Worksheet > Excel > Export to CSV).
Current Quarter Pay Data
- Navigate to Reports > Employees and Payroll > Payroll Summary. Run a copy of this report for each individual check date you have paid employees during the current quarter, including any off-cycles or adjustments (for payrolls in the current quarter, this report runs by check date. Both the start date and end date of the range selected need to be the check date and not the pay period. For example: 4/15/23-4/15/23). Export each separate report to a .csv file (Create New Worksheet > Excel > Export to CSV).
- Once the original batch of Payroll Summaries have been sent, continue to send up-to-date copies for any additional payrolls run in QuickBooks until you have switched to Toast.

This content is for informational purposes and is not intended as legal, tax, HR, or other professional advice. Please contact an attorney or other professional for advice.

Toast Payroll: Previous Payroll Provider Information