Documents Required for ERTC Processing are those you will have filed in the past. In this article Easiest ERTC provides some examples of these documents that will be asked for. Included are some notes on how these forms should be completed.
There are four sets of documents that you will be required to submit to our expert ERTC CPAs. These are all are essential for processing your ERTC Application.
Details on each form can be found below, but in preparing your application get the following forms ready.
- W3 for 2019
- Form 941’s for all quarters (Q2 2020 to Q3 2021)
- PPP Forgiveness Application Forms (if applicable)
- Payroll Journal from 3/1/20 to 12/31/21
Follow these notes to avoid any delays and penalties.
W-3 for 2019
We use this IRS Form W3 to confirm your average number of full-time employees in 2019.
If you have trouble getting a W-3 from your payroll company, you can also provide a packet of W-2’s, or even a state payroll tax form that will help us to estimate how many employees you had in 2019.
PEO Note: If you lease your employees from a PEO (Professional Employer Organization), please provide documentation from your PEO that shows how many full-time employees you had in 2019.
Click To Access a Sample W-3
Form 941’s for all quarters (Q2 2020 to Q3 2021)
You are welcome to deliver these as individual PDFs or as one large PDF, whichever is easier.
In total, we are looking for 6 Federal Tax Return Form 941’s.
We do not need any State filings or the annual Form 940.
PEO Note: If you lease your employees from a PEO, you will not have a Form 941. Your payroll taxes are included on a Form 941 with all the other clients of that PEO. You can skip this documentation.
Click to Access a Sample Form 941
PPP Forgiveness Application Form 3508S
We require one form for each year 2020 & 2021, where applicable. ie. Submit one form for each year a PPP loan was forgiven.
If you did not receive a PPP Loan in 2020 or 2021, or if you have not yet applied for forgiveness, you can skip this documentation.
If you have already been forgiven for PPP, then you should have access to a Form 3508S. This is the document provided to the bank where you stated the amount of the loan, defined the Covered Period and identified how much of the loan was spent on payroll vs other non-payroll expenses.
If you applied for forgiveness through your lender’s online portal, you completed the same information as on the Form 3508S. If you took screenshots as you were completing the application, you are welcome to upload those.
For most clients, if they don’t already have a copy of this application, they can request it from their bank and their bank will provide the documents quite quickly. Importantly, this will be the document requested by the IRS in the event of an audit of your ERTC claims.
NB. If you don’t have this right now, you can always come back with it later. We will wait to begin your claims process until after all our document requests have been received and reviewed.
Click to Access a Sample PPP 3508S File
Payroll Journal from 3/1/20 to 12/31/21
NB. This report must be in spreadsheet format. ie Excel
Ideally, you can produce one report covering all paychecks from 3/1/20 to 12/31/21. We found that many software programs can only run the report for a maximum date range of one year…so it may take a couple of files.
Some payroll providers call this a “Check History”. For others, it is a “Payroll Detail” or “Employee Detail”. For others, it is simply a “Payroll Journal”.
To be clear, here are the important traits of this report:
This spreadsheet should show the breakout of each paycheck for each employee.
This payroll journal should not summarize wages by employee across the entire date range
.
This report should not summarize wages by pay code/deduction/contribution for all employees.
Click to access a Sample Payroll Journal as a Spreadsheet
That completes the documents required for ERTC processing. We will be keep you informed of the documents required and any changes or additions that may be required to complete the application process.