Filing Your W-3 Using Patriot Software

After you distribute W-2 forms to your employees, you must file a W-3 Transmittal of Wages with the Social Security Administration (SSA) along with a copy of each employee’s W-2 on Form W-2 copy A.

If you are a Full-Service Payroll customer, we will electronically file these for you.  After we have filed, you can find your SSA confirmation under Reports > Payroll Tax Reports > Tax Filings.

If you are a Basic Payroll customer, you will need to file these yourself, but you can download the file in Patriot Software to upload to the SSA.  There are two ways you can file:

Option 1: File electronically

You can download an electronic file from Patriot Software and upload the file to the SSA.

1. Payroll > Reports > Payroll Tax Reports > Create W-3/SSA File Please note this W-3 wage file satisfies both the W3 requirement and the W2 copy A requirement.
2. Select the Year.
3. Enter your Business Services Online user ID.  This is an 8-character ID you use to log into to your Business Services Online account.  This user ID will be included in the file data.
4. Click the “Create” button to download and save the .txt file to your computer.
5. Upload this file to the Social Security Administration through your Business Services Online account.  For detailed upload steps, see Basic Payroll Customers: Steps to Upload your SSA File.

Option 2: File a paper Form W-3 by mail

Patriot will file the W-3 form for active Full Service Payroll customers who have Patriot filing company payroll taxes at year-end. 

Basic Payroll customers can print an employer copy of Form W-3 or use the W3 summary report to fill in Form W3 and send it to the IRS.

To use the W-3 Summary Report:

1. Payroll > Reports > Payroll Tax Reports > W-2 & W-3 Summary 
2. Select “Company W-3 Summary” Report.
3. Select the year, and click Run.
4.  You can use your browser’s print settings to print the report for your records.
5. Use this data from the summary report to complete the W-3 by mail.
6. Include copies of each W-2 form with the W-3. (Send W-2 copy A if using W-2 forms or any copy will do if using plain white paper to download the W-2 forms.)
7. For more information, read the article “Company W-3 Summary Report.“ To order the paper W-3 form, refer to the IRS website.

To use the employer copy of Form W-3:

1. Payroll> Reports> Payroll Tax Reports> W-3 Forms
2. Select the year
3. Click download
4. Use this data to fill in your Form W-3. At this time, the SSA has not approved Patriot’s Form W-3 for blank paper submission.

[RELATED ARTICLE: What is a W-3?]
[DEFINITION: W-3 Form]