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Creating and Printing Form 941 at Year-End

You must create and print form 941 at year-end.

Form 941 is an IRS form that all employers withholding income tax on wages are required to file each quarter. You can print a Form 941 for the current quarter or any previous quarter. Before editing fields on Form 941, refer to the IRS Form 941 Instructions.

Once you print Form 941, make sure that Line 10 (Total taxes after adjustment for advance EIC) equals Line 17 (Total), or Total liability for the quarter for Schedule B. Rounding errors (adding or dropping fractions of cents) sometimes cause a difference between the two values. To correct this, you can make an adjusting entry. However, if the discrepancy is less than a dollar, an adjusting entry is not required. To correct a discrepancy greater than one dollar, enter a negative amount on Line 7. If the amount for Net Taxes is less than the amount for Total Liability for Quarter, enter a positive amount.

On Form 941, Line 11 (Total deposits for the quarter, including overpayment applied from a prior quarter) is the amount of taxes you already paid this quarter. Line 11 is subtracted from Line 10 to determine whether or not you owe any money. If this amount is:

  • $1.00 or over — You submit a payment in this amount to the IRS. This amount displays in Field 12 (Balance Due).
  • From $0.00 to $0.99 — You do not have to submit a payment for this amount because the IRS does not require payments under $1.00. This amount displays in Field 12 (Balance Due).
  • Under $0.00 (a negative amount) — You can request a refund or apply this overpayment to next quarter's return. This amount displays in Field 13 (Overpayment).
Note: If you made changes that affect your payroll data (for example, editing an employee's Form W-2) since you last created the Form 941, you must create a new Form 941 or edit the existing 941 to reflect the changes you made.

Don't forget to sign your printed Form 941 before sending it to the U.S. Government. Or, you can make your deposits electronically. To learn more about this, visit the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System website.

If Form 941 does not line up correctly when printing, you may want to select the defaults in Printer Setup.

  1. Under Generate Reports, click the Period End Reports tab.
  2. In the drop-down list, select Payroll 941, W-2s, and ACA Forms, then click Go .
  3. On the 941 tab, select Create/Print 941.
  4. Optional: To print the 941 worksheet for each department to which employees are assigned, select Department, then click Select to choose the departments to print the 941 for.
  5. Click OK.
  6. When the Form 941 Expert displays, select one of the following options:
    • Create a new form 941 — To create a new Form 941 or the Schedule B, select this option. Selecting this clears all selections and adjustments that you made the last time you completed the process.
    • Edit existing form 941 computations — If you created Forms 941 or Schedule B, select to edit amounts.
    • Print/Preview existing form 941 — To print the Forms 941, 941-V, or Schedule B, click this option. The last information you created or edited for the forms prints.
  7. Click Next to complete steps 1-8 of the Form 941 Expert.
  8. When finished, a confirmation message displays. Click the form you want to print, edit the Schedule B, or electronically file your 941s.