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PenguinData strives to provide our customers with a user friendly product. A newer feature to our product is the Corporate Dashboard, which provides the opportunity to build interactive reports and dashboards using JasperSoft. Reports can be created and scheduled to run, allowing you to set the schedule and create who the report will be sent to. You can relax, knowing that your reports will auto generate to your inbox, and the inboxes of anyone you delegate to, as soon as you want them. Corporate Dashboard is available for all customers for no cost unless you would like JasperSoft's support for the product and creating reports. It will not be activated unless we receive back a completed agreement for services that specifies if support is being requested or declined. Once the paperwork has been received by PenguinData the Dashboard will be activated. (If you start off without support and change your mind later, not to worry! We can add support at any time. We will just need the completed form showing that support is being requested). More information can be found at penguindata.com or by downloading our PDF. The Corporate Dashboard is a wonderful product. It allows companies to create customized reports to their needs. If your Dashboard has not yet been activated and you would like it to be, please contact us at 877-973-6484, so we may resend the paperwork to the authorized parties for signature. PenguinData Workforce Management's Training Team would like to inform our rookery of the availability of a training website for your operations. We can create one training office for all of your locations to use for training new technicians, dispatchers, warehouse, and other staff members. To request creation of a training site, contact us through the normal support requests link in your PenguinData website. Once created, one of our trainers can walk you through the setup of this office location. The domain will be
https://training.penguindata.com. Once the site has been created, you will need to complete some of the following areas before you begin to use the site: Create a client in Workforce>Office/Client Data Create Job Codes in Workforce Module>Categories>Job Codes Attach client billing rates to job codes in Workforce Module>Office/Client Data>Billing Rates Create a Pay Scale to be attached to the training technician in Workforce>Categories>Production Pay Scales. (NOTE: when creating a pay scale, be sure to select "Percentage Based") Add % to pay scale in Workforce>Tech/Employee Data>Production Pay Scales Create a technician in Workforce>Tech/Employee Data>Tech Info>Options>Create New Technician. If you will have multiple offices logging in to train, be sure to create a tech number for each office. When you create this technician please also create a mobile login by toggling the Create Mobile User Account on Submit as shown below: The next step will be to create a file that can be uploaded so that you have work on the virtual whiteboard to close out. Take an existing upload file that you use on a daily basis and change the technician number to correspond with the technician that you just created. You can also create equipment types to be scanned into your warehouse and issued to the technicians. You will need to go to Warehouse>Categories>CPE Equipment Categories Once you have done the above step you can scan any CPE from your physical location into the training site by clicking on Inventory and then Add New Inventory. Then you can issue the CPE to the technician that you created a few steps ago. This will allow the technician to attach equipment to the work orders in Mobile. If you need a PenguinData Workforce Management Training site created for your company, please contact us at 877-973-6484. One of our trainers will contact you to walk you through these steps above. We look forward to your continued success in the training of technicians and staff.
TAXABLE VS. NON-TAXABLE EMPLOYEE REIMBURSEMENTS Quite often, clients of our paycheck service inquire about what constitutes a taxable auto allowance vs a non-taxable reimbursement. So I thought we would go over some of the more common items similar to this. First off, in order for something to be a non-taxable reimbursement it must be paid under an accountable plan. An accountable plan has 3 parts to it. Accountable Plan: 1. The expenditure must be for a business purpose. In other words, it must have been a deductible item had the company paid it directly rather than paying it through the employee. 2. There must be adequate accounting within a reasonable time. (You must require receipts or, for Per Diem items, necessary SCAM TARGETING TAXPAYER S PERSONAL INFORMATION USING EMPLOYEE W-2s The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has renewed its warning about an email scam that uses a corporate officer s name to request employee Forms W-2 (and other sensitive employee information) from company payroll and human resources departments. The W-2 scam first appeared last year. Cybercriminals tricked payroll and human resources officials into disclosing employee names, Social Security Numbers, and income information. The thieves then attempt to file fraudulent tax returns. The IRS already has received new notifications that the email scam is making its way across the nation for a second time. The IRS is urging company payroll officials to double check any executive-level or
documentation to support the expense. 3. Excess reimbursements must be returned within a reasonable time. Let s look at common examples: Mileage vs Auto allowance. If you pay mileage based on the number of business miles driven using a mileage rate equal to or lesser than the federal standard mileage rate (currently 53.5 cents per mile starting 1/1/17), then the amount will be non-taxable to the employee. However, if you pay an employee a flat $100 per week for using his car but you do not require any mileage log or require them to return any excess reimbursement, then it is taxable and subject to payroll taxes. Meals. If you reimburse an employee for the exact amount spent on meals while they are in travel status, it is non-taxable. It is also nontaxable if you pay them a per diem equal or less than the federal rate for that location (varies). However, if you just give an employee, say, $500 and do not track how many days they are in travel status or require a return of excess funds, then it is taxable to the employee and the employer must pay the appropriate payroll taxes as well. Other Out of Pocket Expenses. If the employee provides receipts and you pay only the actual cost, these items will be non-taxable. If you just hand out cash every now and then and do not account what it is spent on, then it is taxable to the employee and subject to payroll taxes. unusual requests for lists of forms W-2 or Social Security Numbers. This email scam will contain, for example, the actual name of the company CEO. In the text, the CEO sends an email to a company payroll office or human resource employee and requests a list of employees and information, including SSNs. The following are some of the details that may be contained in the email: "Kindly send me the individual 2016 W-2s (PDFs) and earnings summary of all W-2s of our company staff for a quick review." "Can you send me the updated list of employees with full details (names, SSNs, dates of birth, home addresses, and salaries)?" "I want you to send me the lists of W-2 copies of employee s wage and tax statement for 2016. I need them in PDF file type you can send them as attachments. Kindly prepare the lists and email them to me ASAP." It s sad to say, but the thieves are out there. Please be aware of this email scam and be sure you know exactly who you are sending your files to. These types of files should be sent through encrypted email sources. Other Taxable/Nontaxable issues: Gifts to employees. If you give a physical item such as a holiday ham to an employee, it is not taxable.
However, if you distribute cash or gift cards these are taxable to the employee and payroll taxes must be paid. Bonuses to employees. Bonuses are always taxable to the employees and subject to payroll taxes. PenguinData is prepping release of Jasper 6.3 for the Corporate Dashboard. This update will bring several enhancements: Better dashboard formatting options Dashboard Scheduling Improved dashboard interactivity Project module updates scheduled for release: Display history of deleted job codes in Project billing Adding billed coding to an invoice number for tracking and reporting
MATERIALS: If you have Materials active in your PenguinData, you can now scan all materials inside the warehouse. This new feature will allow you to scan multiple items in at once and even scan in the quantity. To use this time-saving new feature, go into the warehouse module categories to get your system set up with all the material items you have. You can also create catalogs to categorize the items if you wish. For example, underground materials vs aerial materials. Once your materials have been added, PenguinData will create bar codes for each item. Use the bar codes to create a master copy, to attach to your materials, or to add in new inventory. (Simply go to materials, select scan new inventory, and start scanning the barcodes that represent the items you are adding). The process to scan the equipment out is just as easy. Go to scan check out, select the tech, and start scanning the items you want to issue the tech. The process is the same for returning items, except you will select scan check in. If you do not have Materials active but would like it, please send us a support request. (Note: This is not for parts - just materials.)
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