Thanks for your reply Stirling, however, I am using Quickbooks Essentials.  

There is no option for choosing 'workers' - just Employees, then New Payrun.  At this point you can only choose to adjust the 'pay period ending' date and if your pay schedule is weekly then it will only use the week prior to the nominated pay period ending date.

There is also no option for 'Create check'.

I've considered just creating fortnightly and monthly pay schedules but that means i have to go in and change the pay schedule on the employee before every pay, which i would prefer not to do.