Retirement plan payroll item limits
The application handles many types of retirement plan deductions, along with company matching amounts, and automatically adjusts the annual limits for various retirement plans. This includes the following types of retirement plans:
- 401(k)
- 403(b)
- 457
- Roth 401(k)
- Roth 403(b)
- Simple 408(p)
Increased catch-up limits
Certain provisions allow eligible employees to contribute beyond the standard annual limits to help boost their retirement savings.
- Standard catch-up limit:
- This applies to employees that are aged 50-59, or 64 and older.
- The employees need to be this age as of the date of the payroll check.
- Enhanced catch-up limit:
- This applies to employees that are aged 60, 61, 62, or 63 due to provisions from the SECURE 2.0 Act.
- The employees must be this age by the end of the calendar year.
- The enhanced catch-up limit is $10,000 or 150% of the standard catch-up limit, whichever is greater.
note
You'll need to enter a birth date for each employee on the
Personal
tab of the Employee
screen for the application to automatically increase their annual contribution limit.You can make the employee birth date a required field by following these steps:
- SelectSetup,Firm Information, and thenFirm.
- Go to thePreferencestab.
- Mark theRequire Birth date if active retirement plan deductioncheckbox.
The maximum annual compensation limit (for example, $350,000 for 2025) is not considered in the application. For more information, refer to IRS guidance.
Adjust limit calculations
Do the following to turn off the catch-up limit and/or calculate the deduction without the cafeteria 125 deduction amount included.
- SelectSetup,Employeesand then go to thePayroll Itemstab.
- Select the ellipsis button in the row for the retirement plan deduction item.
- On theMaintab, mark theDo not apply catch-up limitcheckbox and/or theSubtract cafeteria 125 deduction before calculatingcheckbox.noteFor Simple 408(p) deductions, you can also mark theIncreased deferral limit (SECURE Act 2.0)checkbox. Marking this checkbox increases the contribution limits by 10%.
- SelectOK, and thenEnterto save your changes to the employee.
Contributions to both traditional and Roth 401(k)
If an employee makes contributions to both a traditional and Roth retirement plan, you'll need to keep both deduction items active on the employee for the application to make sure that the shared annual contribution limit isn't exceeded.