## TL;DR
Fix this in payroll year end by acting on the exact problem first: reconcile W-2 box 1 to the register by subtracting pre tax deductions such as retirement and health premiums from register gross, find any employee whose box 1 does not follow that calculation, correct the wage mapping for the differing deduction, and regenerate the W-2. Do not rerun the whole payroll workflow unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one employee first, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the results against the payroll register.

```text
payroll year end W-2 error box 1 wages do not match register total
```

## Use this when
- The operation in payroll year end fails with this exact problem: payroll year end W-2 error box 1 wages do not match register total.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- A payroll run, tax filing, garnishment check or pay close is blocked until this is resolved.

## Not for this skill when
- The notice is a platform outage from the vendor. Resolve that first, then return here if this problem remains.
- The payroll completes and you only disagree with a pay policy decision such as a rate or a benefit rule. That is a policy change, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure on one named employee in payroll year end and record the full problem text plus the employee, pay period or filing involved. Verify: the failure is reproduced on demand on a named scope, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this problem: reconcile W-2 box 1 to the register by subtracting pre tax deductions such as retirement and health premiums from register gross, find any employee whose box 1 does not follow that calculation, correct the wage mapping for the differing deduction, and regenerate the W-2. Verify: the single failing employee now behaves as the fix predicts, or the corrected value is visible on the record.
3. Check neighbouring employees, pay groups or filings that share the same pay code, deduction setup or import, because this class of failure rarely affects only one employee. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Rerun the original operation in payroll year end on the previously failing scope, watching for the same problem rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original problem does not appear.
5. Compare the result against the source of truth, the payroll register, the tax filings or the employee records, so a silent partial success is caught. Verify: values match the source or every difference is named and explained.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the employee or run record so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the problem, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

## Variant phrasings

### payroll year end W-2 error box 1 wages do not match register total
The verbatim form searchers paste from the console, report or run log. Treat it identically: same fix, same single employee proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix - payroll year end W-2 error box 1 wages do not match register total
The how to phrasing for the same failure in payroll year end. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### payroll year end troubleshooting for this failure
The symptom first phrasing used when the console hides the full problem. Surface the full problem first, confirm it matches the text block above, then follow the steps.

## Why it happens
Box 1 is taxable wages, not register gross, so a mismatch is expected unless pre tax deductions are removed, and a real error is a deduction mapped as taxable or non taxable incorrectly.

## Edge cases
- The employee was terminated, transferred or given a rate change after the failing run started. Refresh the employee state and reapply the fix against the current values, not the values from the failed run.
- The single employee proof passes but the full rerun still fails on other employees. Treat each remaining failure as its own scope, because a shared pay code or import can hide more than one cause.
- The source systems disagree on the correct value. The payroll register governs amounts paid, the tax filings govern amounts reported, and the employee record governs setup; record which source won and why.

Compatibility: payroll year end at current versions, plus the payroll system, time system or general ledger the query names; no extra tooling beyond access to the payroll register, tax filings and employee records needed to verify results.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_5UQdL1ZdRpBtRNJWmHIEXQ