The 2025-2026 deadlines are listed below. Please note that these dates are subject to change.

The beginning of the year may be the carryover date for some of your time off policies. Additionally, you may want to make some adjustments to your policy in preparation for the upcoming year. Take the following tips into consideration as you plan to make changes and prepare for the new year ahead. Should you have any questions about any of these items, feel free to reach out to our Support team to discuss your questions right away.

1. Carryover dates: If the policy carryover date is January 1st, make sure you have selected that date in your policy settings. If you know that your policy will change on January 1st, make sure to schedule those changes for January 1st of the upcoming year. This help guide can show you the ins and outs of creating a time off policy, and the same applies to making changes to your existing policy.
2. Carryover amounts: Have you anticipated carryover amounts for your employees? Once carryover has taken place, it may be helpful to review the Time Off Balances report to ensure carryover worked the way you planned it.
3. Negative balances: If you allow "debt forgiveness" for employees who end the year with a negative time off balance, make sure you have this set up in the policy settings under the accrual options. Simply click the checkbox next to "Reset negative time off balance to 0 hours on carryover date" to do so.
4. Balance adjustments: If you use adjustments in manually updated balances for your employees, do you need to zero out balances at the end of the year? If so, you can run the Time Off Balances report to export end-of-year balances. This report shows balance information as of a specific date, and depending on how you are accruing time off, you may wish to change it to 12/31 or even 1/1. Our support heroes would be happy to help you make the best determination on this. Feel free to reach out! You can use our time off importer to mass import adjustments to zero out your employees’ balances.
5. Who's Out calendar: Are you aware of which employees will be out during the holidays? The Who’s Out calendar helps you keep track of when employees will be out of office as you avoid having everyone out of office at the same time.
6. Edit requests:We know there are always a lot of changes regarding when employees will be out of office during the holidays. Be sure to check out this help guide to learn more about how to modify or cancel requests.
7. Scheduled requests: As we approach the new year, the system will still pull any requests for dates in next year’s calendar from the scheduled time off information. The Time Off Balances report allows you to see an employee’s balances during a specific date range so you can determine which requests are for the current year.
8. Carryovers under time off policies: If an employee requests time off spanning the new year with a time off policy with no carryover (i.e., December 28—January 4), a negative balance will appear for the requested amount in the previous year, and a new line will get added to show the requested amount in the new year. The system still pulls the total requested amount from the employee's time off balance on the first day of the request. Be sure to check out this guide to learn more.

Here are some quick tips to make your benefits enrollment process a breeze when using Benefits Tracking!

You can quickly and easily copy over the holidays from this year to the next. Many employees request time off during the holidays, so copying over your holidays for next year will help your employees know exactly which dates are a company holiday and which dates they need time off. Check out this guide on how to check off this task from your list within seconds!

Additionally, if you need to add a custom holiday, this video can guide you through the process.

Does your company have a company closure during the holidays? Do you need to advertise a company holiday party? Utilizing company announcements in BambooHR allows you to send messages to your employees en masse.

Many policies and procedures need renewal as the new year circles around. When utilizing our e-signature feature, you can request these signatures from employees and have those documents stored electronically. This feature makes it easy for you and the employee to find signed documentation.

Check out our help guides for more information on creating a signature template, requesting a signature from an employee, and reviewing a report that shows you who has not yet completed the required documentation. Additionally, this FAQ page can help answer more questions you may have about e-signatures.

The end of the year is a great time to show your colleagues the magical reports you can run. These reports are concise and compile important data in such an interpretable format, which only takes seconds for you to run!

Some of our favorites are the following:

1. Additions & Terminations: Easily view who has joined and left your organization over the past year.
2. Benefit Summary: View how an employee's benefit status has changed over time. If you keep the same plan and just its cost changes from year to year, this report is a great way to go back and see how long the employee has been enrolled in the benefit plan (or unenrolled) and what the employee was paying for the benefit at various times.
3. Employee Turnover: View helpful insights into employee turnover and filter data in varied ways to spot trends that will provide actionable insight into how the turnover occurred and to whom. This helps you become strategic in how you deal with turnover.
4. Headcount: View how many employees were employed at your company on any given date.
5. Missing Data: Ensure that your employee information is accurate and up to date. Check for missing addresses or job information to make sure you have the information you need!
6. Time Off Used: This report allows you to see time off used by each employee, and perhaps, spot trends or patterns that can help you manage time off better.
7. Time Off Schedule: With upcoming holidays or big events within your company, this report helps identifying upcoming requests and pending requests that still need approval.

This information will help you make sure you have everything finalized in Payroll for a smooth transition to the new year.

1. Submit your Third-Party Sick Pay (p.16) vendor statements to our Payroll Tax Services team via this form. Please note that Third-Party Sick Pay can be listed as TPS, Short Term Disability, Long Term Disability, Insurance provider Sick Pay, and STD.
2. Review deduction reports to verify employee and employer amounts are correct (especially if required to be reported per the IRS Instructions for Forms W-2 or W-3).
   • Record year-to-date Health Savings Account (HSA) employer contributions(p.15) and Employer Healthcare costs for your employees if these contributions have not been reported each pay period (these amounts are included on Form W-2). You can do this by updating the Company Pays amounts for each employee before or on your last payroll run of the year.
   • Click here to learn more about Date Range reports if you need help running one of these reports in BambooHR Payroll.
3. Update both active and inactive employees’ addresses and verify Social Security numbers are correct for W-2 processing. BambooHR Payroll mails all W-2s unless the employee has elected for paperless delivery (inactive employees will receive their W-2 by mail regardless of this option so be sure to validate their address).
   • Tip: You can run a report for W-2 Delivery Method to see what your employees have elected.
   • W-2s will be available in your account by the last day of January each year.
4. Audit wage reports to ensure that any imputed income for the Group-Term Life Insurance Coverage (p.15)(over $50,000 of coverage) has been accounted for.
   • BambooHR Payroll offers a standard 'Extra Pay' type named "Imputed Income - GTL" for reporting purposes. When used, this pay type will map to box 12c on the W-2.
5. Record any missing Taxable Fringe Benefits provided during the year (e.g. employee stock options, personal use of company vehicle, tuition, transportation, etc.).
6. Ensure that 2% Shareholders paid through BambooHR Payroll have been marked as such under the General page for Employee Tax Type for correct taxation of income and excludable deductions.
7. Verify that any pay issued outside of BambooHR Payroll or non-cash items are reported (e.g. gift cards, bonuses, etc.).
8. Audit your reports to confirm that all voided or reversed paychecks have been recorded in BambooHR Payroll.
   • Tip: You can run a report for voided paychecks in BambooHR Payroll.
9. Audit employee pay to ensure that wages and unemployment insurance were reported under the correct state.
   • Tip: The Complete Summary excel report in BambooHR Payroll can help you review this information.
10. Audit W-2's: Use the BambooHR Payroll Reports Payroll Reports Date Range reports "Complete Summary by employee (columns) (No demographic)" report.
    
    Here are the columns to compare to the W-2 on that report:
    • Box 1: "Tax-federal-EE-wage"
    • Box 2: "Tax-Federal-EE"
    • Box 3: "Tax-social security-EE-Wage"
    • Box 4: "Tax-social security-EE"
    • Box 5: "Tax-medicare-EE-Wage"
    • Box 6: "Tax-medicare-EE"

*Items required to be reported following the final payroll deadline may incur additional fees.*

This information will help you make sure that everything is set up correctly in BambooHR Payroll before running your first payroll in the new year.