Every year we go to the IRS website, download the new forms and convert them into the correct adilas forms for payroll and yearend reporting - W-2's, 1099 Misc, 1099 Nec, 1099 Int, and form 1096. We take what they give us, flatten them, remove all of their existing code and fields. The files are password protected, so flattening them strips that off. To flatten the files, we actually trick it. We open the normal file and then say print. We select the print to Adobe PDF option. This allows us to flatten them and resave them. Somewhat of a work around.

We then overlay our own form fields so that we can talk to them through code. We do both blacks (data and physical output) and reds (data only). The reds need to be done on special documents with magnetic ink, so we just do a data overlay, with no output other than the form fields. All part of the process to offer some payroll functionality.