Paying payroll total through QuickBooks Online

A supplemental question to this, we'll also need to make payments to HMRC for the payroll liabilities and to the pension company for the pension contributions, how are they made please as they don't appear to have been recorded to the bank account ledger within QBO automatically?

Hello there, PhillB,

QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll automatically configure your chart of accounts to post payroll costs into their correct account. You can check more about that on this article: Benefits of QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll (QBOAP).

Furthermore, for payroll liabilities, you can set up HMRC Settings. Just go to Payroll Settings > HMRC Settings. You will need to fill in your tax office number, your tax office reference and the accounts office reference.

Check this article for more information: QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll Hub. You'll see related articles on how to use QBOAP.

Let me know if you have other questions, I'll be happy to help.

Hi Mary,

Thanks very much for your reply.  What you say is what I expected, but doesn’t seem to be what has happened.  We have run payroll but the amount paid to employees has not be posted against the bank account.  How do we get QB to post the payroll amount to the bank account please?

Thanks,

Phill.

Hello there, PhillB,

After completing your pay run, your next step is to create a check or expense in QuickBooks Online. This is to record the payment and reflect it on your bank register. Just make sure you select the bank account used to pay the employee.

I'm glad to show you how:

1. Select + New.
2. Under Supplier, select Cheque or Expense.
3. Choose the Payee from the drop-down list.
4. Specify the Bank Account where the money will be withdrawn.
5. Complete the cheque fields. 
6. Click Save and close.

If you have a lot of cheques to write, it is easier to either enter them from the Account history, or download transactions directly from the bank.

Keep me posted if there's anything else you need. I'm always around here in the Intuit Community to help.

Thank you and stay safe!

Hi Mary,

Thank you for this.  So just to double check, doing it via the bank downloaded transactions, we add each payroll payment as a cheque using the "Payment" liability account that QuickBooks has posted the payroll payments to, is that right?

It appears the payroll liabilities are being posted to several different accounts, for example PAYE liabilities, NI Liabilities, Pension Liabilities.  When we add the HMRC payment do we just split it between these accounts?  In QBDT all payroll liabilities went to a singe payroll liabilities account.  Is it acceptable in QBO to change the default accounts all to a single payroll liability account or is it better to leave as separate liability accounts.  The accounts we used in QBDT, while migrated to QBO and appearing in the chart of accounts, don't seem to appear in the list of accounts that can be selected as default payroll liability accounts, is that normal?

Thanks again,

Phill.

Thank you, that’s great and makes sense.

I assume that as in the default account process we can’t change the account to our old Payroll Liabilities account from QBDT that the auto created QBO accounts have to be used for payroll liabilities do they or am I doing something wrong do you think?  Ideally we would continue to post payroll liabilities to the payroll liability account migrated from QBDT.

Thanks again for all the help,

Phill.

Hello there, @PhillB.

Allow me to chime in for a moment and provide additional information about the accounts in QuickBooks Online.

You can go to the Payroll Settings section to make changes to the default liability accounts.

Here's how:

1. Click the Gear icon in the upper-right corner and select Payroll Settings.
2. Go to the Chart of Accounts tab.
3. Change the liability account. 

In the meantime, you can check the following article for some links about the payroll tasks, as well as adding employer liabilities:

• QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll Hub.

• Adding employer liabilities to a pay run in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll.

Please know that I'm just a post away if you have any other questions. Have a great day ahead.

Thank you, will do. I think I’ll just leave the liability accounts as the default ones then and can just make the old payroll liability account inactive.

Thanks again,

Phill.