Accumulating and paying payroll deductions, 401K, insurance, etc in QBO

Hi there, TJ Jordan.

Welcome to the QuickBooks Community. Let me discuss how QuickBooks handles 401K and child support. Then, ensure you can make a payment for that mentioned deduction.

QuickBooks automatically calculates 401k and Child support to the Employee's paycheck. Then, this transaction will show up in the Payroll Liabilities that are located in the Tax Payroll section to track those deductions. However, making payment to them is currently unavailable with QBO and you need to pay outside the program.

Once payment has been made and the entry is available on the QuickBooks Banking page, you'll have to match it with the one already recorded. This is to track the payment and make sure that the 401k and child support is already paid so your tax data stays accurate.

Here's how to match:

1. Go to the Banking menu and choose the Banking tab.
2. Find a downloaded transaction with the Match option in the Action column.
3. Select the downloaded transaction to expand the view.
4. Review the Matching records found in QuickBooks. This is the possible matching transaction you already entered in QuickBooks.
5. Select the link next to each match to get more details. Then, make sure this is the correct match. 
6. If this is the correct match, close the open transaction.
7. Click Match.

After that, you can open this article to see steps on how you can view payroll tax payments through QuickBooks: Access payroll tax forms and tax payments.

Lastly, you may refer to this article to view information on how you can run various reports in QBO so you can manage your tax data: Run reports in QuickBooks Online.

If you have other tax payroll concerns or inquiries about retirement plan deductions in QBO, you can drop a comment below. I'm just around to help. Take care, and wishing you continued success, TJ Jordan.

I believe that this response is assuming that we use the banking option in QBO. Since we do not use this option, would the best option be to set up a task or a recurring payment (even though the amount changes weekly/monthly)?

Thanks for following up with us, @TJ Jordan. 

As my colleague mentioned above, once the 401k and Child support has been calculated, these payments will be listed under your Payroll Liabilities which are located in the Tax Payroll section. In addition to that, making payment to them is currently unavailable with QBO, and you'll need to pay outside the program.

With that said, I wanted to provide a couple of help articles that cover how you can set up child support and 401k in QuickBooks Online for easier access later on. 

• Set up and collect garnishments
• Set up a retirement plan

Since you've stated you do not use the banking section of QBO, I recommend consulting with your accounting professional for further advice. Your accountant can review your books and let you know the best course of action to use based on your business needs. If you don't have an accountant, don't sweat it. You can find one here in our Resource Center. 

Please do let me know if you have further questions or concerns. Have a good one! 

How do I go about paying this each pay period in QBO, recently was forced to switch from Desktop version.  I ran a payroll recently and when i used to do it in Desktop, I would have a liability for each of the 401k withholdings and the matches, but not that's not supported on QBO?    The federal w/h and FICA came in as a liability but not the 401k?  How do I process that each paycheck now?

Hello there, @ckramer8. Recording retirement plan deductions is also supported in QuickBooks Online Payroll (QBOP).

Let's view your employees' Deductions & contributions profile to verify their retirement plan setup and make sure to process this liability on their paychecks.

You'll have to manually set up your employees' 401K plan so QuickBooks calculates and reports it on your payroll forms. If you haven't already or you'll need to double-check the information of the said deduction, you can do this by following these steps:

1. Go to Payroll, then Employees.
2. Select your employee.
3. From Deductions & contributions, select Start or Edit.
4. Select + Add deduction/contribution or the Pencil icon to edit the 401K plan.
5. Choose the 401K plan in the Deduction/contribution type▼ dropdown or the + Add deduction/contribution to set up.
6. For Type, select the applicable retirement plan (401K).
7. Enter the name of the provider or plan in Description (appears on paycheck).
8. Complete the remaining fields.
9. If you have a company match, under Company contribution, select the dropdown menu to choose how you want to calculate the amount. Complete the new fields to enter the amount or percent per paycheck and annual maximum.
10. Select Save then Done.

Once you're done with the setup or verification, go ahead and pay your employees. The 401K retirement plan amounts should now show on your employees' paychecks. 

You can learn more about setting up a retirement plan deduction or a company contribution in QBOP by checking out this article: Set up a retirement plan.

Also, you can run and customize the Payroll Deductions/Contributions report to monitor your employee and company deductions with QBOP. You may want to check out this article for the complete guide: Run payroll reports.

Please keep me posted in the comments if you have other payroll concerns or questions about recording retirement plans in QBOP. I'll gladly help. Take care, and I wish you continued success, @ckramer8.

I too, was a Desktop user that was forced into using QBO. The reports that you are used to seeing in the payroll center of the Desktop version do not exist in the QBO version. Once you have set up your 401K and Insurance, if deducting insurance payments, you will have to go to the reports section in QBO and run these two reports: Retirement Plans and Payroll Deductions/Contributions. You may have to customize each report to the pay period you are working with. Hope this helps

I ran payroll yesterday and all teh amounts do appear on the employees paychecks.  I had been running desktop version for a long time and all that data migrated properly.  Now I am ready to write the actual 401k check to the provider and not sure how to process on QBO, with desktop, once  I ran payroll, I was alerted to make the 401k payment and then processed it much like I do with federal and state withholding.  No alerts this time and don't know how to go about paying it?  I see the items in my payroll liabilities, please help...

It's unfortunate that they forced the move and their seems to be less functionality yet higher costs.

Good day, @ckramer8. Thanks for joining the thread and sharing your concern with us.

Once you migrate from QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) Payroll to QuickBooks Online (QBO) Payroll, your liabilities are converted into journal entries. 

If you haven't set up your payroll in QBO, your payroll liabilities won't show in the system.

If you already set up your payroll, let's make sure that 401k retirement plan amounts are showing in your paychecks once you pay your employees.

If you're still not getting any prompt, you can still open your QBDT (if you're still using the product) and run a Payroll Liability Balance report. That way, you can review your liability balances and use that data to manually pay your 401k outside the program.

Here's how to run the report:

1. Select Reports.
2. Click Employees & Payroll.
3. Choose Payroll Liability Balances.
4. Set the date filter.

For additional resources, you may check these articles: 

• What to do after you move from QuickBooks Desktop for Windows or Mac to QuickBooks Online
• Learn how features and data move from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online

Visit us again if you have other concerns. The QuickBooks Team and other members of the forum are always here to help you anytime of the day. 

Confused, I believe I have set up payroll in QBO online.  Are you able to tell?  I ran a payroll yesterday and seemed fine in QBO, so wouldn't that mean I have set it up?

You referenced QBDT, but I don't use that now, migrated to QBO.  That report you referenced isn't in my reports section of QBO.  Please advise.

I appreciate you getting back to us, ckramer8.

Allow me to chime in and have you pay your 401k liabilities.

Since you were able to run payroll smoothly, we can start by running Retirement plans and Payroll deductions/contributions separately for reference when it's time to pay them. Here's how you can do it in QBO:

1. Click Reports from the left pane menu.
2. Enter Retirement plans in the search bar.
3. Select Customize then edit who to include.
4. Hit Run report.

Next is to pull up the Payroll Deduction/Contributions report. I'll demonstrate:

1. In your company, tap the Reports menu on the left panel and enter Payroll Deductions/Contributions in the search field.
2. This will open the Deductions and Contributions page.
3. From there, click the Date range drop-down to select This month.
4. Click Run Report to apply the customization.

We can now proceed with creating checks using the data from the pulled-up reports and pay them. Let me walk you through how:

1. Select + New.
2. Select Check.
3. Choose the Payee from the dropdown ▼.
4. From the Bank account dropdown ▼, select the account the check withdraws money from.
5. Complete the check fields you need.
6. Select Save and close to close the check window. 

Feel free to utilize this article to see steps on how you can view payroll tax payments through QuickBooks: Access payroll tax forms and tax payments.

I'll be here if you still need further assistance or if you still have other questions. Have a wonderful day!

This is the part where I mentioned that you will not see the liability, you will have to run the RETIREMENT PLANS Report and create a check. When you create the check, make sure to code it to the payroll liability that you use when running payroll. Once you set up the check, you will not have to set it up again, it will automatically fill in the check in future payments. You will only have to change the amounts. You can then set up a task to do each week after payroll is run to help you remember to make all payments. Believe me, when I was thrown into QBO, I was not happy. But it does have a lot of features that could prove to be much better and a bit more streamlined. Just remember, if you have any deductions like 401K, insurance, child support or garnishments, you will have to manually create the check. If it is an ongoing thing (meaning it will happen weekly/monthly) you may want to set up a task. It seems that the QBO support is not versed on the transitions from desktop to online issues. I am very versed and I will be more than happy to help you at any time.

Can you explain to me how to set it up as a task 2x per month after I run payroll for future occurrences?

Yes, go to Tasks and click the ADD TASK button in the top right. Use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwdpQy7O3o0 for detailed instructions. I have found that YouTube is often a better option for figuring out how to use certain aspects of QBO. I don't know if it's allowed or not, but I don't mind if you reach out to me personally [email address removed].

The loss of functionality between QBDT and QBO is beyond frustrating.  It is taking so much more of my time.

QBO is clunky, slow and so much less robust than QBDT.  If I weren't so invested in it at this point, I would be looking for another product.  A few streamlined tasks cannot outweigh the loss of functionality.

so after decades of QB desktop handling these relatively easily, the overpriced and non logical QBO is making it really difficult.

I have resorted to maintaining a spreadsheet to track these deductions and allocation of payments.  Sigh...