Last July I explained how to void and replace a payroll check in Sage 50/Peachtree. One year later Sage has added a new feature in version 2015.1 that allows you to accomplish almost the entire process with one click.
If you need to replace a payroll check, open the original check in Payroll Entry. Click the Reissue button; you’ll find it in the middle of the toolbar at the top of the window. At first, it may look as if the only thing that happened is that REISSUE has appeared in red letters. If you look more closely you’ll notice that the check number is also blank and (in most cases) the date is the current date. Clicking the button actually created an exact duplicate of the original check. When you save or print this check Sage 50 will also void the original check, posting the voiding (reversing) entry to the same date as the replacement check. Posting them on the same date means there will be zero effect on both the general ledger and your payroll taxes. If you close the reissued check without saving or printing it, the original check will not be voided.
Overall, this is a nice new feature but I do have a couple of important warnings.
First, if you change the date on the new check, the taxes and other deductions will recalculate. This could result in the replacement check being for a different amount than the original. It’s very important to make sure all of the amounts on the new check are identical to the original unless you are issuing a replacement because the original check was wrong.
Second, for obvious reasons it should not let you reissue a check that has already cleared the bank but, in my testing, it does. The normal void process won’t allow you to void a cleared check. But the Reissue function will void a cleared payroll check without warning. Certainly it is your responsibility to determine if a check has cleared the bank or not before you agree to reissue it, but I was still very surprised to see that Sage had not built in a safeguard for this situation.
