Add pay history to QuickBooks Online Payroll

If you’re setting up QuickBooks Online Core Payroll, you’ll need to provide an accurate pay history for your employees. This is important as it affects how taxes and NI contributions are calculated.

During the setup process, you'll be asked to enter the pay you've given your team since April 6. It's important to make sure everything is accurate because after you add this data and run the first pay run, you can't change it.

Step 1: Get your pay history info

Use the employee's most recent payslip, P11 Working Deductions sheet, or FPS submission details in order to populate the pay history.

You’ll need a few key pieces of info:

• Total taxable pay
• Total tax paid
• Total pay subject to NI (usually the same as taxable pay)
• Total NI paid by the employee
• Total NI paid by your business
• NI letter
• Earnings at LEL (Lower Earnings Limit)
• LEL to PT (Primary Threshold)
• PT to UEL (Upper Earnings Limit)
• Other pays, if applicable (Statutory Paternity Pay, Statutory Maternity Pay, pension contributions, student loans, postgraduate loans)

Step 2: Enter how much you paid your employees this year

1. When you have all the information, go to Payroll and then Overview. 
2. Next to Add your payroll history, select Start. 
3. If you haven’t added all of your employees yet, select + Add employees. 
4. Select Enter to enter the information for your first employee.  
5. Select Yes if you've paid them since April 6. 
6. Enter the amounts in each column. Make sure the entries match what’s on their payslips or payroll reports for the year. 
7. When you’re done, select Save. 
8. Repeat steps 4–7 for each employee paid this year.
9. When finished with all employees, select Done.

Step 3: Fix missing payroll items (if necessary)

If you're missing or seeing incorrect payroll items, here are some possible issues and solutions:

• If you don't see a pay type or deduction, it may be listed under a different name (for example, National Insurance may be listed as NI). If it's still missing, you may need to add it.
• To add or change pension, loan or deduction, use the option at the bottom of the pay history. To add or change other payroll items, Cancel and return to the employee's profile.
• Employer taxes are automatically calculated based on your employee and company totals, so you don't need to enter them separately.