Payroll Deductions

Tip: For best practice information about payroll deductions, refer to eTapestry Best Practices: Payroll Deductions.

Many organizations allow employees to adjust their benefit selections and payroll options during a specific time of the year (an enrollment window). During this time, some of your organization's employees may indicate that they want to deduct some of their paychecks to support your mission.

Before you accept payroll deductions:

• Create an approach called "“Employee Giving” or “Payroll Deduction.” Use it to indicate which pledges are payroll deductions. Typically, you'll also apply the money to an annual fund. For details, refer to Campaigns, Funds, and Approaches.

• Create a query based on the approach criteria. Use journal items as the data return type. You'll use the query when you report on payroll deductions and when you apply pledge payments in bulk. For information about queries, refer to Queries.

Typically, you should treat payroll deductions as annual pledges.

1. At the beginning of the year, calculate how many pay periods will occur for the year and the total amount the employee will give. This total determines the number of pledge payments and the pledge amount.

2. Create a pledge and schedule for each employee who gives payroll deductions. The frequency should be the same as the payment schedule. The First Installment Date should match the date of the first payroll deduction. For general information about pledges, refer to Gifts.

   Tip: When a new employee decides to make payroll deductions, add the pledge and use the same fund, approach, pledge schedule, and frequency as the other pledges which are payroll deductions. For the first installment date, enter the date when the amount will be deducted from the employee's first paycheck.

3. When your accounting department sends a check for each pay period, apply the payments to employee pledges. To apply the same pledge payment to all payroll deductions, run a Mass Update to add scheduled payments to the employee's journals. When you run a mass update for the journal items, use the query that you created to identify payroll deductions. Use the pay period date as the pledge payment date. For information about mass updates, refer to Import.

   Note: You can use eTapestry to track payroll deductions. However, eTapestry can't access your accounting department or withdraw money from employee bank accounts. Work with your accounting or payroll department to receive the money from payroll deductions.

4. To adjust an amount or delete a payment after pledge payments are applied , edit the journal item on the employee's account. For information, refer to Journal.

5. At the end of the year, write off the remainder of any pledge that was not completed. For example, an employee may leave your organization during the year, and thus you stopped receiving payroll deductions from that person. At the start of the next year, you'll create pledges and pledge schedules for employees who choose to give payroll deductions.

6. Remember to thank employees for their monetary support. Refer to Thank You Letters.

Note: Alternatively, you could treat the payroll deductions as recurring gifts. Do this if an employee intends to give "forever" rather than for a year. When the employee retires or leaves the organization, end the recurring gift schedule. You'll still use an approach to indicate that the recurring gifts are payroll deductions. Create a query based on the approach criteria and use journal items as the data return type. Create a recurring gift schedule for each employee's recurring gift. Run mass update to apply payments to the recurring gift schedules. For general information about recurring gifts, refer to Recurring Gifts