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Customise payroll and employee reports

SOLVED•by QuickBooks•Updated over 1 year ago

QuickBooks Desktop offers a selection of payroll and employee reports that can help you manage payroll and keep track of employee expenses. You can also customise these reports to get the information you need.

This article is part of a series that covers basic information about customising reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

Note that available columns and filters differ for each report/group of reports since each draws information from the company file differently. Understanding the concept of source and targets is particularly important when customising reports.

To customise any existing Employees and Payroll report:

  1. Select Reports at the top, then choose Employees and Payroll.
  2. Choose your desired existing report.
  3. Select Customise Report to modify your report.
  4. Select OK.

You can memorise your report to save it for later use.

Follow these steps to create a detailed custom report that lists each individual payroll item, the rate for each payroll item, and the total amount that has been paid to that payroll item.

  1. Go to the Reports menu, then select Custom Reports > Transaction Detail.
  2. Go to the Display tab and in the Columns section, deselect everything except Payroll Item, Qty, Sales Price, and Amount.
  3. Go to the Filters tab, then choose the following filters:
    • Account then from the drop-down, choose the appropriate Payroll Expense Account/s
    • Transaction Type then from the drop-down, choose Payroll payment.
  4. Select OK.
  5. Enter the date range in the From and To fields.
  6. Select Refresh.

Need to know how much an employee spends in a month? Create a detailed custom report that shows expenses by employee totalled by month.

  1. Go to the Reports menu then select Custom Reports > Summary.
  2. Enter the desired date range in the From and To fields.
  3. Select the Display columns by drop-down and choose Month.
  4. Select the Display rows by drop-down and choose Employee.
  5. Go to the Filters tab then select Account from the Filters list.
  6. From the Account drop-down, choose Expense and other expense accounts.
  7. Select OK.

Payroll items are the amounts that make up a payroll payment. They include the taxes and deductions that affect the payroll payment total as well as company expenses related to payroll. You can limit a report to transactions that contain a particular payroll item.

  1. Open the report then select Customise Report.
  2. Go to the Filters tab and choose Payroll Item from the Filters list.
  3. Choose payroll item(s) to include in the report:
    • Two or more payroll items: Select the Payroll Item drop-down then choose Multiple payroll items, and then the name of each payroll item you want to include in the report.
    • A category of payroll items: Select the Payroll Item drop-down and choose a category. For example, to limit the report to withholding taxes, choose All Taxes Withheld.
    • One payroll item only: Select the Payroll Item drop-down and choose a payroll item from the last section of the list.
  4. Select OK.

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