The preparation and printing of IRS 1099 and IRS 1096 forms doesn’t need to be a major event, especially when using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC). Using the step-by-step approach in this article will make the January 31 deadline easier to meet. Included are eight personal insights from supporting 1099 reporting activities in Dynamics NAV and BC for close to 20 years. For example, we can quickly find total paid to each vendor in the tax reporting year for comparing to the amount that will report on 1099 forms.

Let’s start by running a report to tell us how prepared we are right now to print 1099s at the end of January. Don’t worry, if you find missing vendors or amounts, the steps to take to find the problems and make them right are listed below.

Step 1 – Check your Business Central version

Has your BC been updated to handle any new 1099 and 1096 form requirements? If you received the last update on Azure, you’re all set. If you are not on Azure, click here  to get regulatory 1099 changes and details for Business Central.

Step 2 – Updates to 1099 Forms

Over the last few years, in addition to adding new form boxes, printing alignment, and the ability to print 1099-NEC, the following updates have been made for the preparation and printing of 1099 forms:

1. When one or more entries have been posted with an IRS Code, a notification when you change that 1099 Code on a Vendor Card page was added. Accepting the notification will update the 1099 Codes for all associated entries (like purchase orders, journal lines, posted invoices, credit memos and vendor ledger entries).
   INSIGHT: This does not apply to entries without an IRS 1099 code, for example when initially adding an IRS 1099 code.
2. The ability to schedule the update of the form boxes.

Once you have confirmed that all prior years have been printed and reported, go to 1099 Form Boxes, and run the Update Forms Boxes action. This creates a job queue entry to run the update that includes new box codes and other changes to the form.

After you run this function, you cannot report on prior years.

Step 3 – Form 1096 is now available to print in Business Central (finally!)

If you try to run the Form 1096, you may receive a notification that 1096 Forms is not yet enabled. This must be done by an administrator through Feature Management. From the wizard that runs on enabling this feature, create and assign a Number Series for 1096 Forms.

Step 4 - Run the Vendor 1099 Information report for all vendors

Go to the Vendors list page, choose the magnifying glass icon, and enter the text Vendor 1099 Information. For some reason this report is only in your search result from here or a Vendor Card. I like to bookmark the Vendor 1099 Information report opened from the Vendor List page for easy reference.

On the report request page that opens, enter a Date Filter for the tax year you are reporting. If you opened the report from the Vendor Card, it will be filtered to this one vendor.

Step 5 – Determine 1099 amounts are correct