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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-04-18
Setup Considerations: Single Legal Entity Company Relationships (USA)

Setup Considerations: Single Legal Entity Company Relationships (USA)

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of the USA Single Legal Entity (SLE) company relationship type. It explains:
  • Why to set it up.
  • How it fits into the rest of Workday.
  • Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.
  • Security requirements and business process configurations.
  • Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.
Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

The SLE company relationship type in Workday enables you to roll up multiple companies into 1 managing company that serves as the reporting legal entity.

Business Benefits

  • Process U.S. payroll for related companies while respecting tax and withholding order limits for workers in multiple companies in the company relationship.
  • Combine wages and taxes paid by all companies for periodic and quarterly payroll tax filing.
  • Combine Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting for all companies.
  • Produce financial and managerial reports for the legal entity and its related companies.
  • Specify the length of the SLE relationship by tax year.

Use Cases

  • Generate balance sheet statements for related companies using the balancing worktag for other purposes.
  • Produce consolidated financial statements for all companies in the SLE company relationship that are part of a company hierarchy.

Questions to Consider

Questions
Considerations
How do you review and file tax data for companies in an SLE company relationship?
Workday calculates taxes in the related company. You can report taxes for related companies in 1 of 2 ways:
  • Combined: The SLE issues a single W-2, which includes wages paid by all companies in the relationship. You can't review and file tax data for individual companies in the company relationship.
  • Separate: Workday creates 1 W-2 for workers. Your tax filing vendor can create a separate W-2 for each company the worker is in.
Do your workers have withholding orders in the related companies?
You can copy withholding orders to the managing company to continue processing them.
What are your worker's tax elections in the related companies?
You can copy tax elections to the managing legal entity company to continue processing them.
How have you set up taxes for the related companies?
You need to set taxes up the same way for all companies in the relationship.
How can I add a new related company to an existing SLE company relationship?
You can only add a new company on the
Edit Company Relationship
task if you haven't run any pay calculations yet.
How does Workday calculate 1042-S taxes when there’s a Single Legal Entity (SLE) company relationship?
When there’s a Single Legal Entity (SLE) company relationship and the
Exclude 1042-S Taxes from Tax Filing
configuration is different across the companies in the relationship, Workday only considers what you selected for the
Exclude 1042-S Taxes from Tax Filing
option for the managing company to determine if 1042-S taxes should be included or excluded from tax filing.

Recommendations

Workday recommends that you review tax elections in the companies, and align them with tax elections entered in the managing company. Workday takes the tax elections for the worker from the managing company.

Requirements

For tax reporting purposes, Workday treats all companies in the SLE relationship as a single company. For tax reporting purposes, Workday requires that you standardize tax configurations for the SLE and the related companies. For all companies in the relationship, you must use the same:
  • Federal, state, and local tax setup.
  • Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)

Limitations

When you complete a payroll run, you can't modify or delete the SLE relationship. You can only end the relationship at the end of the tax year.
Workday doesn't support SLE for workers who have an international assignment position in the U.S.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Domains
Considerations
Set Up: Payroll (Tax Filing/W-2s) - USA
in the USA Payroll functional area
Manage: Company
in the Organizations and Roles functional area.
Enable you to create and edit SLE company relationships.

Business Processes

No impact.

Reporting

Reports
Considerations
All Single Legal Entities
Use to review all SLE relationships.
You can use the
Entry Date
prompt to specify when you changed your SLE company relationship. The changes that you make to an existing SLE company relationship may not display until after the entry date.
Tax Filing Periodic Data by Company
Tax Filing Periodic Data for Workers
Tax Filing Monthly Data for Workers
Tax Filing Quarterly Data by Company
Tax Filing Quarterly Data for Workers
Use to review tax filing data for SLE relationships.
1099 MISC Report
You can review transactions from the SLE company and its related companies.
Custom Reports
You can use the
All Single Legal Entities
report data source when creating custom reports for SLE relationships.
Multiple Worksite Report by Company
Multiple Worksite Report by Worker
You can use these reports to review combined QTD and YTD amounts for all employees in SLE company relationships.

Integrations

These web services enable you to extract and load SLE relationships:
  • Get Single Legal Entities
  • Put Single Legal Entity

Connections and Touchpoints

Touchpoint
Considerations
Tax Filing Vendors
Set up tax filing vendors for correct reporting to the tax authorities.
Financial Accounting
Set up financial accounting features, such as journals and financial statements.
1099 MISC
Set up 1099 MISC reporting.
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.