How do I get the online payroll version to raise an employee cheque rather than posting a journal to the bank account.

Hello Jwrcatreasures, 

Welcome to the Community page, 

Can we ask which payroll it is you are using is it standard or advance?

The way to tell which one you have is 

when you click on payroll if you have two other tabs showing this is standard payroll 

when you click on payroll if no other tabs show this is advanced payroll. 

I use standard payroll

Standard payroll

Thanks for getting back to us here, @jwrcatreasurer.

I have an idea on how you can print a cheque for your employee. You can run your payroll as normal, write a cheque and delete it after printing. Then, add the cheque number to the payroll journal.

Here's how to write a cheque:

1. Go to + New.
2. Under Suppliers, select Cheque.
3. Choose the Payee from the drop-down list.
4. Specify the Bank Account where the money will be withdrawn. Complete the cheque fields. 
5. Scroll down towards the Print option to print the cheque.
6. Click the Print button.

After printing the cheque, just pick the More button below the cheque and then tick Delete. From there, go back to your payroll journal and add the cheque number. Need more details, check out this payroll guide: QuickBooks Online Standard Payroll Hub.

If you need help with other payroll tasks, click this link to go to our general payroll topics. It contains articles with steps that'll guide you through the process.

Keep me posted if you still have questions or concerns. I'll be around to assist you. Take care and have a wonderful day ahead.

H Shiella. Thank you for responding. In Quickbooks desktop version it was straightforward, as once I ran the payroll it would automatically raise a cheque for each employee. On transferring to Quickbooks Standard payroll online it appears to be a very complicated process by posting journals in the bank account which I have to delete and raise a cheque for each employee instead. Why cannot the online version mirror that of the desktop version. I only have four employees to pay each month and would go crazy if I had a large employee base. I'm not sure whether I am being nieve or stupid as I am not an accountatnt. Any further assistance would be very welcome. 

Hello there, jwrcatreasurer.

QuickBooks Online has a different platform with QuickBooks Desktop. There are functions in QBDT that's unavailable in QBO.

For example, when you run payroll in QBO it automatically creates a journal for accounting postings. However, when printing cheques, it works differently than what you're used to in QBDT. You'll need to create a cheque in QBO before you can print one. After that, you can delete the cheque created and add the cheque details on the JE. Just follow the steps above on how to create the cheque.

To learn more about Payroll functions in QuickBooks Online, you can visit this article: QuickBooks Online Standard Payroll Hub.

Let me know if you need anything else. 

Thank you all for your help but I will try your way although I am not completely convinced or confident in Quickbooks in that respect. As I previously stated I would go completely mad if I had a large employee base and had to do that each time I ran the payroll. If I had known this before I transferred to the online version I think I would have opted for different software which is a shame as I have been a Quickbooks user for over 20 years including Quicken.

I suppose the only other way to make things easier for myself is to accept the journal postings in the bank account and issue a MANUAL cheque and record the cheque number in the journal to save having to raise a cheque, print it and delete the cheque. Either way the system is not going to recognise that a cheque has been issued. Any thoughts?

Hi Jwrcatreasurer, You could certainly just issue a manual cheque and note on the journal for your own reference and accept the postings on the journal for the bank account as you say if you did the other method once you deleted the cheque there would be no record on the accounts of it other than a mark in the audit history and possible impact if you use the reconcile tool and you did that after a reconcile period was finished.

Hi Emma. I think I will carry on doing what I feel confident in and that is copying the payment details including tax deductions  to a cheque payment request and then deleting the journals. The system will then recognise that a cheque payment has been made and will reconcile to the bank statement. Thank you for your help and patience which I am grateful for. Although I still cannot understand why the designers and developers couldn't mirror the system of the desktop version.