thread Re: Employee Contributing 100% into their Guideline 401k Problems in Staff & Payroll

Employee Contributing 100% into their Guideline 401k Problems

HTLLUser — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 06:24:55 GMT

I have setup Guideline 401k through Square. I have an employee who is contributing 100% of their pay into 401k (props to them for saving for the future!) but this has created problems for me running their payroll.

The system error message says, "Employee’s net pay minus reimbursements cannot be a negative amount."

But that is wrong since I pay (employer) and 100% of the employee pay is being deferred into their 401k retirement account.

Another problem I have experienced is Square Payroll does not know when an employee's 401k is maxed out for the year, which has led to over-contribution into employees' 401k.

I've tried calling SQ Payroll for help, but the staff doesn't understand this. Does anyone else have a solution to this besides telling their employees to not contribute too much?

Re: Employee Contributing 100% into their Guideline 401k Problems

MayaP — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 22:06:54 GMT

Hello @HTLLUser, thanks for reaching out and bringing this to our attention. I am sorry our Payroll Support Team was not able to assist you. I am looping in some of our Payroll experts here in community who can assist, @Donnie-M @ryanwanner @LLCafe @PartyManiaMD @balmonte @Bronze_Palms. If you guys need anything else please let us know.

Re: Employee Contributing 100% into their Guideline 401k Problems

HTLLUser — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 20:19:39 GMT

Hi Maya, following up here since no one has replied back to this post 3 days later...

Re: Employee Contributing 100% into their Guideline 401k Problems

_Violet — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 22:19:20 GMT

Hi @HTLLUser - Violet here, following up for @MayaP.

I'm not sure of the answer to this one myself, so I'm going to consult with the Square Payroll team on this one to get the best answer for you.

I'll reach out to you here once I hear back from them.

Re: Employee Contributing 100% into their Guideline 401k Problems

_Violet — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:26:56 GMT

Hi there again, @HTLLUser. Thank you for your patience.

The Payroll Team let me know the following, "We do not support 100% contributions, as the employee still owes social security and medicare taxes, so we need there to be leftover net pay for taxes to come out of (100% contributions means no net pay so nowhere for taxes to come out of). Other providers may support 100% contributions by deferring the tax payment or debiting the employee's bank account for the taxes, but we don't have such support."

I hope this information is helpful but please do let me know if you have any additional questions.