Year-end reports

What you file for the year

Year-end reports, under Finance, lists each form your firm owes for a calendar year: who files it, when it is due, who is in it and where it stands. Pick the calendar year at the top. It is the year the money was paid, January 1 to December 31, not the tax season.

GoRefer files nothing. Your firm, or its payroll provider, files these forms. GoRefer totals what was paid, collects W-9s, builds the files and keeps your record of where each filing stands. This is a guide, not tax advice.

• 1099-NEC for 1099 preparers: pay you marked paid to preparers set as 1099 contractors. Everyone paid at or over the IRS reporting threshold for that year gets one. Copies and the IRS filing are due January 31 of the next year.
• 1099-MISC for prizes and rewards: sweepstakes prizes, referral rewards and appreciation rewards one person received, at or over the IRS reporting threshold for that year. Copies are due January 31; the IRS filing is due at the end of February on paper or the end of March electronically.
• W-2 preparers’ commissions and bonuses: supplemental wages your payroll provider reports on each preparer’s W-2. Send it the W-2 supplemental wages file.
• Form 1099-K: when you take client payments on your own Stripe account, Stripe sends you this form. There is nothing to file for it here.
• A due date that falls on a weekend moves to the next business day.

W-9s

Each person you report on needs a Form W-9 on file. Ask for it from their row: they get an email with a secure link to fill it in, and their number is kept private. A person has one W-9 with your firm, whatever you paid them for, so a W-9 given for a prize also covers their pay.

Until a W-9 is in, that person’s row in the filing file is left blank where the W-9 would fill it, and marked to check before filing. Nothing is filled in for you.

Documents and saved copies

Every file is built from your records when you download it.

• Preparer pay by month: what you marked paid to each preparer, with their pay type.
• 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC filing files: each person’s legal name, full taxpayer identification number, address and amount, for your filing software. Each download is recorded, and these two files are never saved anywhere.
• W-2 supplemental wages: commissions and bonuses paid to W-2 preparers, by month, for your payroll provider.
• W-9 status: everyone you report on, with their W-9 status and only the last four digits of their number.
• Save a copy puts a dated copy of a summary file in a Year-end folder in your File Manager, which only admins can open. The filing files can’t be saved.
• Your firm’s EIN is not stored here. Add it as the payer number in your filing software.

Marking where a filing stands

Use Update status on a form to mark it Not started, Sent to recipients, or Filed with the IRS with the date, and add a note such as how you filed. Every change is kept with who made it and when. Marking a form here doesn’t send or file anything.

In early January, your admins get an email and a notice for any form from the year before that has someone to report and isn’t marked filed. It follows your automatic emails setting.