Why are payroll expenses not categorized by the classes selected in timesheets?

[RobotBen]

We're a nonprofit that tracks "functional expenses" (program, admin, and fundraising). We use classes to categorize these. Our payroll expense must also reflect this functional breakdown, as some employees work in multiple categories. 

We use TSheets, and employees select class when logging time. These are then approved in QBO timesheet approval and processed using QB payroll. 

When I pull up the P&L report and display columns by class, the payroll expense is not categorized by class. How can I make this work? Other solutions point to categorizing employees by class, but that won't work. For us, the class depends on the timesheet entry, not the employee.

[Angelyn_T]

Thank you for reaching out to us here in the Community, @RobotBen.

Allow me to share some information about class tracking in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

The classes used in the timesheets won't reflect and won't categorize the payroll expenses by class in the Profit and Loss report. The class used will reflect when you create an invoice.

If want to categorize the payroll expenses by class, you may send your product suggestions to our product engineers for future updates and product enhancements.

To send your product suggestions:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback under User Profile.
3. Share your feedback or suggestion.

Let me know if you have any other concerns about class tracking in QBO. Have a good day ahead!

[LadyFarmer]

I use manual payroll but this link may be helpful: 

https://help.quickbooks.intuit.com/en_US/kb/tracking-payroll-expenses-by-class-department-or-locatio... 

one more step to add for the report to be narrowed down to THAT class only 

• on the “Customize Report” tab also select the “Filters” tab
  •   Left column “Filter” select Class
  • On the next box over select the Class specifically from the drop down (Any or all)

You will note on the paycheck detail that the Class box is near the upper right corner.

[Bernadettesmith12]

Did you happen to find a work around for this?  

[BettyJaneB]

Good day, @Bernadettesmith12.

Thanks for joining us here in the Community today. I'm here to provide some information about categorizing payroll expenses by the classes.

I hear you and realize the importance that this can have to your business. Currently, our developers don't have the workaround yet and we aren't able to tell when this will be available. Sending your feedback online is a big help for our engineers to determine the features that needs to be added to our product. At this time, I'll do my part and raise this concern to our Developers so this will be taken care of.

Also, you can visit our QuickBooks Online Blog to be updated about our latest happenings. Through this, you're able to get the newest news, features, and updates about QuickBooks Online and what our Product Care Team is working on.

In case you need additional assistance, you can always reach out to our Customer Care Team through this contact information:

1. Go to: https://help.quickbooks.intuit.com/en_US/contact.
2. Choose your QuickBooks Product.
3. Select your QuickBooks version.
4. On the Contact Us page, click a topic.
5. Click on the Get Phone Number button to see the support number.

Please let me know if there's anything else you need. I'll be around to help you out. Have a great day!

[Matt_]

Hey Ben,

I've been bashing around in a trial of QBO to see if it's a good fit for our internal job tracking system and I believe I have finally figured out an unorthodox yet practical way around this issue. Fingers crossed!

In KEYPAY payroll, the only extra tracking attributes (per time entry) that get pulled in from imported QB time-sheets are 'Work Type' and 'Location'. As we only have one office Location and we track transactions by Project then by Project Stage (Class), the Location field was redundant for us and provided an opening. Even if you need to use locations, our method still works with a few tweaks by using nested lists.

To get the journal entries for payroll to show the correct Class as per the time-sheet data entry, we set up a QB 'Locations' list to replicate our Class list (Project Stages), then imported this list via the payroll settings where we then specified a corresponding Class for each specific location. To check this, once a payrun is finalised, the imported payroll Journal entries will now be allocated according to the correct timesheet entry class and can be tracked accordingly.

For our COGS to reflect accurate payroll expenses according to each branch of our services, we then had to specify location specific accounts in the payroll settings. To avoid this becoming a headache of inherent redundancy, we initially set up the pseudo 'Locations' list as a nested tree under our actual main office Location with 'sub-locations' according to our separate 'services provided'. These then branched off into further 'sub-locations' for specific tasks or stages (ie our classes list) and the nesting continues on in this way.

Hope that all makes sense!

Surely QB will sort this out eventually but in the interim, this workaround method appears to work well and we are now able to accurately track labour on Jobs as was totally impossible before.

Cheers!

Edit: Extra step added to the above....

To maintain Job Tracking capability, and ensure payroll expenses accrued for each Project / Name are reflected in the Journal entries exported by KEYPAY, you also have to modify relevant line items (now grouped by class within the Journal Entries) to re-associate them to the correct 'Name' / Project. This is very simple if only one Name / Project has been used per class in the scheduled payroll (and associated time-sheets) but if not, the Journal line item has to be re-entered according to the correct Name / Project split which is simply a matter of comparing data on the time-sheets with the data on the payslips to allocate the split accordingly (use both reports to do this to ensure your separated and revised class totals match the original payroll bulk export totals).

[msiegel]

I am also looking to see how to add class codes to payroll entries.  I'm in QBO, so the desktop answers don't help.  Has anyone found anything on this yet?  It looks like this thread is over a year old.

[Nick_M]

Hi, msiegel. 

Thanks for dropping by the Community, this feature is currently unavailable in our QuickBooks Online product, I would recommend checking out our blog spot. There you can see up-to-date news and what updates are coming to the product. 

If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to post here any time. Thank you and have a lovely afternoon. 

[jjukey]

I was looking at the same thing... was considering changing over payroll to QB but I thought the whole point was to be able to integrate with TSheets and allocate out time/payroll based on program (classes).  From an accounting perspective I'm not sure what the T-sheets integration does (other than for hourly employees)?   I'm surprised this hasn't been addressed- with my current third party payroll provider, they do payroll and time, and have reports that allocate time based on payroll.  Surprised this hasn't been integrated in TSheets/QBO.

[JKAcct2021]

A 3 year old post and still no fix to this.

We have worker's comp codes we need to track that vary per employee depending on the job. I thought creating classes was the answer, but it does not track.

Still have to do it all manually in excel.

I am very disappointed with many things in QuickBooks online. May switch to desktop, but not sure that will fix this issue.

[Michi65]

I use the desktop payroll and have not found a way to categorize by class. It's very frustrating.

[BK-PaulDavis]

This is the WORST change from Desktop to QBO!!  We use classes for our divisions.  How in the world are are supposed to get our labor into the correct divisions?  

[MirriamM]

Thanks for posting in the Community space and bringing this to our attention, @BK-PaulDavis.

We recognize that each company has unique needs, and I can see how the feature you're looking for would benefit and empower your business. In the meantime, I recommend sending this request straight to our product engineers through feedback. This helps us improve the features of the program.

To send feedback, follow the below steps:

1. Go to the Gear icon at the top.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions. 
4. Then select Next to submit feedback.

To be updated with the recent and upcoming changes for QuickBooks products, visit these sites:

• QuickBooks New Features and Innovation
• Your feedback in action: Edition 2

If you need anything else , please let me know. I want to help in any way I can.