California payroll software

California Payroll Software - $219

Run California payroll using Payroll Mate® payroll software.

Calculate California state payroll taxes including Unemployment Insurance (UI), Employment Training Tax (ETT), State Disability Insurance (SDI) and California Personal Income Tax (PIT) withholding. Calculate federal taxes including personal income tax, Social Security and Medicare.

Process payroll forms including DE-9 / DE-9C (requires Payroll Mate Option #5), 941, 944, 940, W-2 & W-3. Process payroll for common law employees and independent contractors. Use built-in reports and tax forms to make timely payroll tax deposits with the California Employment Development Department (EDD) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Pay both California residents and non-residents with different types of marital status, pay frequencies, withholding allowances and exemptions. Payroll Mate helps employers comply with California and Federal recordkeeping requirements including workers' names, Social Security numbers, hire dates, wages and other information. This California payroll system is ideal for small businesses and accounting firms.

California Payroll taxes supported by Payroll Mate®

Our payroll software supports the following payroll taxes. Please note that this list is specific to California and does not cover all the capabilities of the payroll tax calculator that ships with Payroll Mate.

  • UI Tax (Unemployment Insurance). Each employer is assigned an unemployment insurance tax rate annually by the EDD. UI is an employer paid contribution (paid by employers only). Inside Payroll Mate navigate to the "State Tax Information" tab in the "Company" setup screen and enter the UI tax rates for each quarter and enter the wage base. Make sure to check the "State Unemployment (Employer)" check box in the employee setup wizard.
  • ETT (Employment Training Tax). The ETT provides funds to train California employees in certain industries to improve the competitiveness of the state's businesses. The ETT rate is 0.1 percent on the first $7,000 of the taxable wages. This tax is paid by employers only. To configure this tax inside Payroll Mate, employers will need to create a custom payroll tax with a "Percentage" calculation method, set the quarterly rates to .1 and set the wage base to $7,000. Once the tax is created at the company level it needs to be checked in the taxes screen in the employee's new/modify wizard.
  • SDI Tax (State Disability Insurance). This tax is withheld from employees' wages and allows the California Disability Insurance Fund to pay disability and family leave benefits to eligible workers. The rate for this tax is 1.0% of the applicable wage base for the year. To configure this tax inside Payroll Mate, navigate to the "State Tax Information" tab in the "Company" setup screen and enter the values under "State Disability Insurance (Employee) Rate" and "State Disability Insurance (Employee) Wage Base".
  • PIT Withholding (California Personal Income Tax). This tax is imposed on the income of California residents and on income that nonresidents earn within California. Payroll Mate uses "Method B - Exact Calculation Method" to calculate PIT. When setting up a new employee inside Payroll Mate employers will need to enter the following fields AS IS from the Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate: California filing status (Single, Married or Head of Household), allowances and additional allowances.

In addition to these taxes Payroll Mate can be configured to calculate any local or special California payroll taxes the employer is required to pay / withhold. Payroll Mate also calculates federal income tax withholding, federal unemployment tax (FUTA), Social Security and Medicare.

California State Payroll Forms Supported by Payroll Mate

In addition to federal forms 941, 940, 943, 944, W-2 and W-3, Payroll Mate supports the following California payroll forms:

  • California DE 9 (also referred to as DE-9 or DE9). The "Quarterly Contribution Return and Report of Wages" form is used by California employers each quarter to report "THE TOTALS OF TAXABLE WAGES AND TAX WITHHELD" for Unemployment Insurance (UI), Employment Training Tax (ETT), State Disability Insurance (SDI) and California Personal Income Tax (PIT) to the CA EDD. Payroll Mate prepares, exports (to PDF and other formats) and prints this form. Payroll Mate is approved by the EDD to print DE-9 form on white paper according to the "DE 9 Printing Specifications - Computer or Laser Generated Alternate Forms". This form must be printed on 8.5" X 11" white paper with black ink only in order to be imaged (processed) with the state's equipment. The DE-9 is due on April 1st for the first quarter, July 1st for the second quarter, October 1st for the third quarter and January 1st (of the next year) for the fourth quarter.
  • California DE 9 C (also referred to as DE-9C or DE9C). This "Continuation" form has to be filed with form DE-9 each quarter. Unlike DE-9 that includes only totals for all the employees, form DE-9C lists employees' names, social security numbers, total subject wages per employee, PIT wages per employee and PIT withheld per employee. Employers must file this report even if they had no payroll for the quarter. Payroll Mate is approved by the EDD to print DE-9C on regular white paper. The due dates for CA DE-9C are identical to CA DE-9. To access forms DE-9 / DE-9C inside Payroll Mate navigate to the "Forms" screen and then click "State Reporting", in the wizard that comes up select "California" for the "Reporting State", specify the quarter and the form to prepare.

In addition to preparing forms DE-9 and DE-9C, Payroll Mate offers a "California Income Tax Withholding Generic Report" that lists total number of employees in the quarter, taxable PIT wages totals and per employee, PIT tax withheld totals and per employee, employees' SSNs and names. Payroll Mate also offers a similar report for Un-employment tax.

Support for California payroll forms requires Payroll Mate Option #5 (not part of the basic $219 software).

Other Payroll Mate® Features Important to California Employers

The list below includes part of our payroll software features that are important to California employers. For a complete list of Payroll Mate capabilities, please click here .

  • Remittance advises created by Payroll Mate comply with the California Pay Stub Requirements (California Labor Code Section 226-a) .
  • Helps employers comply with California record-keeping requirements. CA employers are required to keep records for at least four years and up to 8 years in certain cases. Payroll Mate keeps a separate data file per company per year, which makes it easy for users to lookup checks and reports for previous years and archive data as much as they want.
  • Makes the process of transferring data and payroll information to an accounting system easy and reliable. Payroll Mate has a dedicated export capability for Intuit QuickBooks, Intuit Quicken, Sage 50 and Sage Peachtree. Payroll Mate can also export data to a General Ledger, which gives users the critical information they need to include in their financial, accounting or ERP software. Examples of financial software (free and commercial) that can import payroll data through GL accounts include Xero, TurboCASH, UltraTax CS, ACS, GnuCash, MAS 90, MAS 200, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage 100, Intacct, Oracle Business Suite, MYOB, NolaPro and NetSuite and Microsoft Accounting.
  • Payroll tax deposit reports inside Payroll Mate show employers how much they need to deposit for federal income tax, social security, Medicare, federal unemployment tax, CA Unemployment Insurance (UI), CA Employment Training Tax (ETT), CA State Disability Insurance (SDI) withholding, and CA Personal Income Tax (PIT). In California, Payroll Tax Deposit (DE 88) coupon is used to report and pay state payroll taxes.
  • In addition to complying with federal requirements, W-2 Forms created by Payroll Mate comply with California Wage and Tax Statement requirements including Box 16 that shows California PIT wages, Box 17 that shows California PIT withheld and Box 14-Other that shows CA SDI withheld.
  • Minimizes errors and time spent in configuring new employees by providing the ability to import employee's information including name, address, tax ID, email, phone, federal filing status, federal allowances, additional federal withholding, withholding state, additional state withholding, pay type, pay rate and pay frequency.
  • Supports independent contractors and non-employee payroll including the ability to pay utility companies, taxing agencies, lenders and farm-labor contractors. Payroll Mate also prints 1099 and 1096 forms. Support for 1099 payroll requires Payroll Mate Option #6 - Vendor and 1099 Center (not part of the basic $219 software).
  • Offers the ability to create electronic paycheck stubs (remittance statements) with the ability to email to employees.
  • Basic $219 payroll software supports up to 10 companies with 75 employees per company. Payroll Mate Option #3 (Additional Companies and Employees) adds the ability to Payroll Mate software to support up to 100 Companies and 1000 Employees per company.

Payroll Mate Software Details


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