How do I change payroll distribution accounts?

Hello BigTick,

It's a pleasure to see you in Community.  Welcome!  QuickBooks Online Payroll enables you to map the associated accounts, so you can process payroll seamlessly.  This will ensure a positive outcome in your books. I'd be glad to assist!

Here's how to map your payroll accounts;

1. Open your Settings ⚙ and select Payroll Settings

2. Click on the Edit   for the Accounting section

3. Open the Edit   to set the accounts for Wage expenses

4. Use the ▼ dropdown menu to make your selection for each item

5. When finished, hit Save

Should you require additional assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us outside of Community. We'd love the opportunity to work with you in real time, and ensure you're able to accomplish your payroll goals without delay!

If you have any other questions, feel free to reach back out. We would be happy to help!

We use numbered accounts and wanted to setup payroll items as subaccounts so we could have one main account as total payroll costs.

We tried following these steps but when we ran payroll we found QBO had created duplicate accounts for EI, CPP, CPP2, and Vacation Pay where the names were the same but they had no account numbers.

Is it possible to have account numbers on payroll accounts? Is it possible to have them as subaccounts? If so, why is QBO creating duplicate accounts?

Hi Christopher141,

When you subscribe to QuickBooks Online Payroll, QuickBooks automatically creates the associated accounts.  However, if your payroll transactions aren't registering in the correct account, you'll want to check if you use account numbers in your chart of accounts. 

You may need to turn it off:

1. Go to Settings , then Account and settings

2. Select Advanced

3. From Chart of accounts, select Edit ✎

4. Select Enable account numbers to turn off

5. Hit Save, then Done.

Follow this link to see how to Change your accounting preferences in QuickBooks Online Payroll.

For additional assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us at 1-855-253-1536 from Monday to Friday between the hours of 9 AM and 8 PM EST.

Your success is our number one priority, and we would be glad to assist!

Thanks Trish but as noted in my original question, we do use numbered chart of accounts and would like to continue doing so. Does this mean that payroll accounts cannot be numbered in QBO?

Hi Christopher141,

Standalone payroll accounts would have a unique number.  Otherwise, payroll accounts have the same number as the QBO account.

I hope this is found to be helpful!