QBO payroll

Hi CWCIY, 

Thanks for posting in the Community. 

You can assign a QuickBooks class to a location in payroll. Doing so, once the payroll journal will be exported classes will be pre-populated. 

To assign a class to a location in payroll: 

1. Go to Employees tab and select Payroll Settings. 
2. Select Locations. 
3. Click on the location to which you want to assign a class or click Add to create a new one. 
4. From the Classes drop-down, choose the class you want to assign to the location.
5. Select Save. 

To export payroll journals using locations and classes:

1. Go to Employees and select Payroll Settings.
2. Select Chart of Accounts.
3. Click on Default Accounts.
4. For each journal transaction type that you want classes and locations to be assigned to, click the Split by location option against each transaction type. In this case, we're going to split the wages expenses by location.
5. Select Save. 

Once done, ensure that your earnings line for your employees are allocated to the correct locations. 

1. Go to the Employees tab and select their name to open their details.
2. From the menus on the left, select Pay Run Defaults.
3. Under the Primary Location menu, select your class, then scroll down and Save.

For more information, you can check on this article: Export Payroll Journal with classes and Locations. 

Let me know if you need further assistance and I'd be glad to help. Have a great day! 

I do not want to assign a location to a class for payroll.  I want to assign an employee salary among several classes based on %.  We use classes in QBO as department and I need to see salary expense by department.  Several employees work in multiple department areas and so their salary must be allocated.  Location is not a piece of this allocation.  

Thanks for getting back to us, CWCIY.

Thanks for getting back to us with more information. At the moment in QuickBooks Online Payroll, the options available are either using locations or using department class to a location in payroll. The settings for Locations can be accessed and updated by clicking on the Payroll settings > Location option.  

You can check these articles to learn more about how to Splitting Costs / Hours Across Multiple Locations.

Let me know if you have more questions. I'd be around to help.

So, there is no way to separate payroll expense by department without adding a location?  

Hello CWCIY,

You can either use the locations or split wages by pay category. The steps provided by my colleague are the workaround available so far in QuickBooks Online Payroll. You can create locations in QBO and import these to Payroll, then assign the employee a default location. In your Payroll Chart of Accounts, you can then set your wages to allocate to corresponding general ledger accounts. 

If you are trying to set up the wages to journal to separate accounts so you can track their wages separately by creating a new pay category. You can check this link to learn more about how to Create and manage Pay Categories.

Please know that you're always welcome to post if you have any other concerns.