Setup Considerations: Common Paymaster Company Relationships (USA)

Workday enables you to process the common paymaster type of company relationship. The designated common paymaster pays the wages of all employees within companies in the relationship during the relationship period.

Workday aggregates the wages earned across all companies involved for purposes of limit calculations for:

OASDI.
Medicare.
Federal Unemployment Insurance (FUI).
State Unemployment Insurance (SUI) for configured states.

You're responsible for ensuring eligibility under applicable law for:

All companies included in the common paymaster relationship.
All employees paid by the common paymaster.
All states configured in the common paymaster relationship for SUI aggregation.

Questions	Considerations
Do you qualify to file as a common paymaster?	You're responsible for ensuring eligibility under the applicable law. Workday recommends that you work with your legal department before implementing common paymaster.
How are you calculating common paymaster currently?	If you're using a workaround to calculate common paymaster in Workday, consider whether you want to migrate to Workday Common Paymaster. Example: You're using a single company workaround for common paymaster. You currently receive a single pay result, single payslip, single deposit and single W-2 for an employee with multiple jobs. When you establish a Workday common paymaster relationship, you might not get a single pay result or a single deposit for an employee with multiple jobs.
Do you use the MasterTax integration?	If you do, configure common paymaster on the MasterTax portal.
Do you use the ADP integration?	If you do, configure your ADP profile to support the desired common paymaster reporting outcome.
Do you use the Ceridian integration?	Ceridian doesn't support common paymaster relationships.
Will you have a midyear transition from common paymaster in a legacy system to common paymaster in Workday?	For midyear transitions, test balances and limits thoroughly while considering any payroll history you've loaded.
Which administrators need access to managing the common paymaster relationship?	An administrator must have security access to the designated common paymaster company to be able to manage the relationship. Confirm that security is working as expected when you establish a common paymaster relationship. Example: Make sure that administrators for related companies can still perform their duties as expected. Make security updates as needed.
Do your workers have tax elections in the related companies for the common paymaster relationship?	Workday Payroll for the USA only applies tax elections entered under the common paymaster company. Workday applies them to all jobs and companies within the common paymaster relationship. However, you can make an employee FICA exempt for a job in 1 common paymaster company, while jobs in other common paymaster companies continue to withhold FICA.
What reconciliation items might you have for the common paymaster relationship?	You’re responsible for ensuring your payroll tax reporting and year-end statements reconcile and you report them according to applicable laws. Some reconciliation items to consider: EINs reported on federal and state tax returns match EINs reported on year-end forms. Information reported on the Form 941 and state tax returns will reconcile to year-end forms for the FEIN and state EINs reported. When using a third-party vendor for tax filing while using Workday to generate W-2s, ensure the FEIN and state EINs on the W-2s tie to the tax returns your vendor filed. The FEIN reported on the Form 940 is related to the state SUI account/EIN reported on the quarterly state unemployment returns. The IRS FUTA Certification Program verifies with each state that the credit claimed against the FUTA tax on Form 940 was actually paid into the SUI fund.

Start a common paymaster relationship on 01-01 in the effective tax year before running payroll.

Configure 1 state per row on the common paymaster relationship. This method helps you easily identify configuration errors, and provides clarity when auditing your configuration history.

Set up the same federal, state, and local tax configuration for all companies in the common paymaster relationship. Ensure that the tax configuration is active before or at the start of the common paymaster relationship effective dates. If you need to add additional configuration after the start of the common paymaster relationship, enter the same effective date and tax configuration across all companies in the relationship.

Set up worker tax elections under the common paymaster.

Ensure that the configuration is accurate before running the first payroll for any companies in the relationship. Once run, you can’t modify certain elements of common paymaster relationship. You also can't end the relationship until you complete the last payroll for the effective year.

Workday might not automatically update tax filing, and completed and in-progress pay results when you retroactively:

Create a common paymaster relationship after you've processed payroll in the common paymaster effective year, for any companies in the relationship.
Add a related company after you've processed payroll in the common paymaster effective year for that related company.
Add a state after you've processed payroll in the effective quarter, for any companies in the relationship.

You can only:

Start and stop a common paymaster relationship at the beginning of a year.
Include a company in a common paymaster relationship when it's not part of any other company relationship for the same effective period.

You can't delete:

The common paymaster relationship, and related companies from the relationship if you’ve calculated payroll within the common paymaster effective dates.
States within the common paymaster relationship if you’ve calculated payroll within the configured effective quarter.

Workday doesn't:

Display the common paymaster company on pay results for the worker. You can use the
Common Paymaster
report field in custom reports to return the common paymaster relationship from a pay result.
Support common pay master company relationships for workers who have an international assignment position in the U.S.

No impact.

Domains
Set Up: Payroll (Tax Filing/W-2s) - USA domain in the USA Payroll functional area	Enables you to create and edit common paymaster company relationship.
In the USA Payroll functional area: Process: Tax Filing/W-2s (Run) - USA Reports: Pay Calculation Results for Worker (Tax Filing/W-2s) - USA Set Up: Payroll (Tax Filing/W-2s) - USA	Enables you report on common paymaster relationships, and create and extract them in bulk using web services.
Manage: Company domain in the Organizations and Roles functional area.	Enables you to set up and report on common paymaster company relationships.

Workday Payroll only applies tax elections entered under the common paymaster. You can use the

Copy Tax Elections

business process.

Report	Considerations
All Common Paymasters	View the common paymasters and related companies, along with the state authorities and configurations for the relationships.

You can create and extract common paymaster company relationships in bulk using these web services:

Get Common Paymasters
Put Common Paymaster

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

No impact.