Few aspects of the tax code are as complicated and as opaque as the compensation offered to clergy and other church officials. Many years ago, all clergy were classified as self-employed contractors, and for the purposes of Medicare and Social Security taxes, they still are. Clergy must pay the self-employment tax, or SECA. In most other respects, however, they’re considered employees. And this is just the beginning of the tax and payroll issues that need to be addressed with church payroll software.
Catch Up with Church Payroll Software
It’s true that a minister’s wages are exempt from income tax withholding, but some churches and religious members mistakenly believe that their tax-exempt status means they don’t have to file with the IRS/SSA at all. This can come as a rude awakening when the IRS does come calling. In one piece of good news, our church payroll software is capable of providing both “live” and “after-the-fact” payroll calculations and forms filing. Catch up on your bookkeeping fast and stay caught up with Advanced Micro Solutions (AMS) payroll.
Payroll and Compensation
Churches are under incredible pressure with uncertain information about how to pay their clergy in the first place. How much does the senior pastor earn compared to the associate pastor? What about an administrative pastor who only fills in at the pulpit as needed? And all of this is before you get to other church officials—custodian, choir director, childcare provider—who may command a salary, or other types of compensation. Many types of compensation can be handled by our standard payroll features, but our system also includes 40 user defined fields that can be set up to handle more specialized church payroll software needs.
Discover a Better Software Solution with AMS
Even after your organization has figured out how to classify its clergy and church officials, as well as what constitutes fair pay, there’s still actually doing the payroll and forms filing. Don’t let this process become its own set of headaches. Find a versatile and affordable software solution with AMS.
It starts with our intuitive, menu-driven platform—the W-2/1099 Forms Filer. Personalized data entry tools include an entry screen that resembles the actual form for clarity’s sake, as well as a spreadsheet format for church accountants who are looking to deliver that extra measure of efficiency with new church payroll software. Either way, our automatic save feature, data importing, and a Common Payee File means you’ll never have to enter the information more than once.
This platform also offers the ability to print the information on pre-printed tax and payroll forms. (With our Software Generated Forms module, you can even print out the forms themselves.) Finally, our Forms Filer provides information security, encrypted PDF files, and reliable data reports.
Our Payroll Module
AMS Payroll offers a huge range of features that can be leveraged by churches, as well as many businesses and other organizations. We encourage you to sign up for a free software demo, or talk to our Sales and Information team at (800) 536-1099. Along with the software capabilities we’ve already mentioned, here are some of the most popular features that are available with this software product.
- Automated federal, state, and local payroll tax calculations.
- Direct deposit processing and paycheck printing (includes MICR checks with our Software-
- Generated Forms module).
- Data import/export for quarterly and year-end filings.
- E-file forms 940, 941, and/or 944.
- Creates SSN verification files.
- Certified payroll reports and client letter formatting.