Employee wants bonus to be 50% 401k deferral and 50% income tax. How do I create this in payroll?

Good afternoon mgardner,

Thank you for joining the QuickBooks Community! For something like this, we recommend connecting with your accountant to verify the best practice as far as the 50% from 401k deferral and income tax goes. I have these steps below that will guide you on how to create a bonus check for an employee, though. First, you would need to create the bonus item.

1. Go to Payroll, then Employees.
2. Choose your employee.
3. From Pay types, select Start or Edit.
4. In the Common pay types section, select Bonus.
5. Click Save.

From there, you would need to be sure if you are doing the pay bonus along with the employee's salary or if it is a bonus-only paycheck. Either way, this article listed the steps for both. I encourage you to review this. 

• Pay an employee bonus.

If you need an accountant, we offer a ProAdvisor service where you can connect with experts within your area. Simply add your zip code and browse through the options. Many even offer a free consultation as well. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to let me know. My team and I will be ready to help. Take care for now, and seasons greetings. 

Thank you for your response. However, I don't see how this accounts for a net zero paycheck.

I know there is a way to do this as we do it every year with the help of a QB payroll specialist.

I appreciate you dropping back here in the Community, @mgardner,

To accurately address your concern with the utmost priority, I suggest contacting our QuickBooks Online Payroll (QBOP) Support Experts.

They have the perfect tool to check your queries. Since this includes modifying and adjusting paychecks.

Follow these steps to contact our QBO Payroll Experts:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online company.

2. Go to Help (?).

3. Select Contact Us.

4. Enter your concern, then select Let's talk.

5. Choose a way to connect with us:

• Start a chat with a support expert.
• Get a callback from the next available expert.

For detailed information, kindly visit: Contact Payroll Support.

Since the tax season is fast approaching, you may want to read this article for future reference to learn about common tax payment and form filing questions: Get answers to your payroll tax payment and filing questions.

Feel free to leave a reply, if you require further assistance with creating paychecks in QBO Payroll. The Community team is here to help anytime. Have a great day!