Court orders and garnishments on an employee

What this does

A court order tells you to take money from an employee's pay and send it to someone else. Record the order on the employee's Pay tab. Each pay run then deducts it in legal priority and never takes more than the law allows.

Steps

1. First add the payee in Settings › Payees. See Payees (court order recipients).
2. Open the employee and choose the Pay tab.
3. Under Court orders and garnishments, choose Add court order.
4. Choose the Kind of order: Support order, Crown demand (CRA requirement to pay), Ordinary garnishment or Voluntary wage assignment.
5. Choose the Payee and the Exemption law. The default is the province of employment.
6. Enter Served on, the day the order reached you.
7. Enter what the order asks: Amount each pay, Share of net pay, Most in one pay or Total to collect. If you enter both an amount and a share, the smaller is taken.
8. Enter Dependants where the exemption counts them, and Exempt amount each pay if the court or the order certifies one.
9. Enter the Court file or notice number. It is quoted with each payment.
10. Use Preview to see what the order takes from a typical pay.
11. Save.

How the order is applied

• The list shows the order in which pays deduct them: support first, then the Crown, then ordinary garnishments, then wage assignments. Within each kind, the order served first goes first.
• A pay run warns when an order was limited, for example "took {taken} of {demanded}". Review it before approving.
• Deductions stop when the total is collected.
• Status can be Active, Suspended, Satisfied or Released. Suspended and released orders are kept but not deducted.

Good to know

• An order that has pay history is released rather than removed.
• An older recurring deduction set up as a garnishment shows Move to court orders. Move it so the exemption limits and payee remittances apply.
• What each payee is owed appears under Remittances. See Payee remittances (court orders).