What is a Garnishment Recipient?

A Garnishment Recipient is simply a vendor database table entry, flagged as a "Garnishment Recipient", used to collect/manage money deducted from individual staff members via "Garnishment" Deductions.  A Garnishment Deduction is created when a staff member is legally required to have money deducted from their pay for a court specified reason (e.g. child support, student loan payments).  Garnishment Recipients are created and managed on the Financial→Vendors, Etc.→Garnishment Recipients screen.

How are Garnishment Recipients tied to Deductions?

There are three steps to creating a Garnishment:

1. Create a "Garnishment Recipient" who will eventually be paid.  One of these needs to exist for each "Garnishment Recipient" who must receive withheld money.  Multiple staff members can have funds being sent to the same Garnishment Recipient (e.g. county court).
2. Create a "Garnishment" Deduction which is used to pull the money from staff members.  Only one of these needs to exist.
3. Create a Deduction for an individual staff member who is being garnished.  In this individual's Deduction, specify how much money to take from their pay and which Garnishment Recipient it is to be paid to.

Garnishment Recipient

First, a "Garnishment Recipient" is created.  This specifies where the deducted funds will be sent.

Garnishment Deduction

Then, a "Garnishment Deduction" must be created:

Garnishment Deduction for Individual Staff Member

This is what turns on a garnishment for an individual.  Create a Garnishment Deduction for an individual Staff Member, specifying both the Garnishment Recipient (who to pay) and the amount of the garnishment.

It is at this point that the amount of the garnishment is specified and the "Garnishment Recipient" is selected.  This allows the same "Garnishment Deduction" to be used to deduct different amount from different staff members to be collected by different "Garnishment Recipients".   Strictly speaking, only a single Garnishment Deduction need exist - all of the complexity is handled by when adding the Deduction to individual staff members.  Multiple Garnishment Deductions can be created if you have different deduction requirements - such as, someone has a Simple Amount-Declining Balance and someone else has a Simple Amount.  Also, maybe someone else has a percentage deducted instead of an amount.  Only one of each is needed based on the district's needs.

When creating the garnishment Deduction, specify:

• The Amount.  This is what will be taken from the staff member's pay either monthly or per pay period.
• The Garnishment Recipient
• Upload copies of any applicable court orders.