Adding court orders in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll

Learn how to add a court order to an employee's record in QuickBooks Advanced Payroll.

To add a court order

1. Select Employee Details then Pay Run Inclusions.
2. Click Add on the right hand side of Deductions.
3. From the drop down menu select Post-Tax Deduction as the Deduction category, and then Apply Court Order.

A box will then appear requesting you to apply the court order. You will need to specify the appropriate court order from the drop down menu and it will pre-populate the most common settings for that type of court order.

Specify the court order

The following court orders we support are:

• England/Wales Attachment of Earnings Order (AEO) - Priority
• Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO) - Pre March 2003
• Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO) - Post March 2003
• Council Tax Attachment of Earnings Order (CTAEO)
• England/Wales Attachment of Earnings Order (AEO) - Fines
• England/Wales Attachment of Earnings Order (AEO) - Non Priority
• Scotland Earnings Arrestment (EA)
• Department of Work and Pensions Direct Earnings Attachment (DEA) - Higher Rate
• Department of Work and Pensions Direct Earnings Attachment (DEA) - Standard Rate
• England/Wales - Council Tax AEO Pre 2007 (CTPRE07)

Once you have chosen your court order click Save, you will then need to fill in the required fields. Here you have the option to change the amount (per pay run) to:

• Fixed - this is a fixed amount taken every pay run.
• Percentage of gross - this is a percentage of gross earnings.
• Percentage of NET - this is a percentage of net earnings.
• Varied based on earnings amount - if this option is selected you will need to then select the type of court order and pay frequency (weekly/monthly).

Multiple court orders

If any employees have multiple orders, QuickBooks needs to know which one to apply first. The system defaults to 0 but it's down to you to deem the priority for each court order.

How to set priorities on court orders

1. Select Employee Details then Pay Run Inclusions.
2. Click Add on the right hand side of Deductions.
3. From the drop down menu select Post-Tax Deduction as the Deduction category, and then Apply Court Order.
4. In the Priority box, enter the level for the court order.

Student loans

If you have a student loan, it would depend on the court order if the student loan will be deducted. If you have a Council Tax Attachment of Earnings Order (CTAEO) then the student loan would not be calculated, other court orders would depend if they are priority or non-priority.

QuickBooks will calculate this and you will have the option to amend it if you need to. If you do not have a student loan, the system will ignore it.