QuickBooks Pro 2012/Non Tax ?

[Kurly]

Hello Folks:
I am very new to QB's. Would any of you be willing to tell me the steps to enter the payroll information into QB's ? My client has an outside person doing his payroll only, but wants to be able to enter the info into QB's to get his real P&L and Balance Sheet.

Thanks All Much

Kurly

[geekgirldany]

Here are some links:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4682603_setup-manual-payroll-quickbooks.html

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/inproducthelp/core/qb2k12/contentpackage/Payroll/Payroll_Other_Services/..%5C..%5CPayroll%5CPayroll_Other_Services%5Ctask_manual_payroll.html

http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/inproducthelp/core/qb2k12/contentpackage/Payroll/Payroll_Other_Services/..%5C..%5CPayroll%5CPayroll_Other_Services%5Ctask_calc_taxes_no_tt.html

[outwest]

Those will help you do payroll yourself, on the other hand

If the client wants to continue the processing of payroll with a service, you need to make journal and check entries to put the totals in QB. Probably monthly.

If that is what you were asking, I can give more details.

[Kurly]

QB Pro Inputs

YES. Can you give me an example as to what the various entries woul look like/

Thanks

Kurly

[Uncle Sam]

Quickbooks Payroll

I use QB for my writeup clients - but use an after-the-fact payroll program (CFS Payroll).
What I do in QB is to post the paychecks to an exchange account, then gross up the payroll to clear out the exchange account balance.
My past experience with QB payroll program wasn't very good, and I frankly don't like the system. I feel more comfortable having more control over the data entering.

[outwest]

I thought so.

YES. Can you give me an example as to what the various entries woul look like/

Here is an outline of the process:

First easy step: Setup accounts
1. Paychecks as other current liabilities type
2. Federal Payroll Liabilties as Other current liabilities type
3: State Payroll Liabilities as Other current Liabilities type
4. Salaries and wages as expense type
5. Payroll taxes as expense type

(you can break these out in more detail if needed, for instance officer salaries expense for a corp. These few accounts just make it simple. To avoid ongoing nag warnings, don't bother using the default payroll liabilities or payroll expense accounts in QB)

With each payroll:
Enter each paycheck in the bank account coded to "paychecks"

Enter a Journal entry for the payroll totals:

Salary and wages - debit
Federal Payroll Liabilties - Credit for SS and Federal withholdings
State Payroll Liabilties - Credit for State income tax withholdings
Paychecks - Credit for total net checks

A this point the journal entry should balance and when posted, the paychecks account should zero out. Check it!

Second Journal entry:
Payroll taxes - debit for the SS, unemployment taxes and other employer taxes
Federal Payroll Liabilties Credit for SS match, Fed unemployment
Sate Payroll Liabilities Credit for State unemployment

Last when tax deposits are made, code the check to the federal or state liability as needed.

As I said earlier, you can add more liability accounts for SS & MC & FUTA. This is the KISS method.

If garnishments are there, (likely) add a garnishments account as other current liabilities, enter as a credit in the paychecks journal entry, and pay it like a tax deposit.

[Uncle Sam]

Quickbooks Payroll

Look at all the extra steps you have to take that outwest outlined - is that going to really save you time and effort?

The whole purpose of QB was to do multiple accounting steps simultaneously. If you have to do the work yourself - might as well use an external program and make a compound journal entry to clear out the net checks.

That's why I don't use QB payroll.

I also don't like QB's system of lumping together payroll and payroll taxes into one account and you've got to break them out separately.

[outwest]

Boy, you've got me confused Uncle Sam.

The whole post above was about the steps to journal in from an external *non-Quickbooks* payroll as simple as I could boil it down. The post wasn't how to use QB payroll but instead nuts and bolts on how to post external payroll to Quickbooks.

To avoid the process in that post, you'd have to *use* QB payroll. Doesn't sound like you would be a fan of that. You've got company.

Once the steps above were done and the journal entries memorized, it would take 3-5 minutes to journal in from the external payroll system.

Agreed, no big deal to use external payroll and the reason we process most of our client payrolls in another system.

[geekgirldany]

You can do all of this without having to do QuickBooks Journal entries. You can if you like but QuickBooks 2008 and later... you can select to process the payroll manually. If you haven't already take a look at the last two links I gave you. It says:

Go to the Employees menu and click Pay Employees. On the Enter Payroll Information screen select the employees to pay, open the Paycheck Detail for each employee, and replace the "zero" amounts with the appropriate tax amounts for each paycheck.

This would probably be easier for your client than entering journal entries.

[veritas]

The payroll service

may be able to create a file to import into Quickbooks. We have done this for several clients.

[outwest]

There you go Kurly, several options.

My personal ranking would be:
1. File import - once accounts are mapped and they understand the process it should be simple, should be a couple of minutes.
2. Journal entry - as outlined above. 3-5 minutes per payroll
3. Manual payroll entry - last for me as it's tedious for more that a few and requires setting up all of payroll in QB including payroll items and employees to get it to post.

Just my preference.

Another thought is to enter the paychecks as regular checks and split the checks with the gross pay to salaries and wages and all the withholdings as negative numbers to arrive at the correct net checks. Still tedious to me, but at least you don't have to setup all the payroll items and employee setups to make it work as #3 would require. (assuming the payroll service is producing the quarterlies and so on)

I love how you can do manual payroll in QB but it's hidden in the fine print on the payroll setup screens that keep channeling the user to one of the paid services. Oh veh!

[taxxcpa]

Payroll

I record each payroll check for the NET after-tax amount for which the check is written and code it to "Payroll Clearing Account."
The client enters the pay on an excel worksheet which I have designed on which the hours worked, rate per hour for up to 40 hours and the equivalent for overtime and the worksheet calculates gross pay. In other columns, the SS & MCare is calculated. The income tax withheld is manually entered, and the program calculates the net pay (which should total to the same amount as the "Payroll Clearing Accountj."

Excel adds the total of the weekly payments and withholding for each employee and I use that to post to my payroll program (Drake's CWU).

The excel worksheet calculates the total SS & MCare by mulitipling gross pay by 13.3%
I then make a general journal entry in my accounting program (Peachtree) debiting Officers's salaries and Employees' salaries and crediting taxes withheld and net pay. I check to make sure this results in zeroing out the payroll clearing account.
I subtract the SS & MCare Withheld from the 13.3% total and make an entry for the employer's share of FICA.

This may sound like a lot of work, but it takes very little time since excel does most of the work and posting the journal entry takes very little time.
Most of the entries on the excel worksheet that I designed is done by the client, and I just do the totaling by employee at the bottom of the worksheet and make the entries in Peachtree and CWU.

If I had a lot of payroll work, I would use some sort of payroll program, but for the small amount I do, this does the job.