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How to unapprove a pay run in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll

SOLVED•by QuickBooks•14•Updated June 09, 2023

If you’ve ever found yourself needing to make changes to a previously approved payroll in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll, you’ll be glad to know that it’s easy to unapprove and make the necessary adjustments. In this article, we’ll take you through the steps of unapproving payroll and how to make the necessary changes.

If you find you need to make additional entries after approving your payroll, unapproving it allows you to do so without having to re-enter all of your data from scratch.

  • Reverting an approved payroll is only possible if you haven’t advanced the pay run for that period yet 
  • The process involves reversing the journal entry that was automatically posted when you initially approved the payroll
  • If you have submitted your RTI file, you will need to resubmit so that any changes made are reported to HMRC
  • Once you advance your payroll into the next period, you can't go back and re-open previous pay periods

Unapprove the pay run

  1. Go to Payroll, and select Pay runs. 
    This will take you to a page where you can view all of your pay runs that have been approved and are awaiting processing. 
  2. Select the employee. A message box will appear. 
  3. Select Remove the approval. The pay run will be reopened for the pay period.
  4. After you remove the approval, you'll see another journal post to reverse the first journal posting. The reversing journal will have the same journal reference with "R" at the end.
  5. After making any changes, approve the pay run again.
  6. Print the amended payslips and resend RTI submissions to HMRC.

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