I don't find the button where I can select the class for each employee. I go to Setting- Payroll Settins- Accounting (under Preferences). I have only two options: To use different accounts for different group of employees or use different accounts for different wages. I use QBO Plus $60/mo. Is there an upgraded version of QBO where I can assign the employee to a class??

Thanks josecampbell. Toggling on and off on 'class tracking' did the trick. This is so not intuitive at all. Who would think that you have to do turn it off and on back again. So weird but I'm so glad that I could assign the class to the payroll expenses!

Quickbooks Time will allow employees to clock-in in multiple classes but when I import the time to desktop it is putting all of the hours no matter what they selected in the class that is selected in their payroll info tab in their profile.  Everyone I've talked to on the phone says employees can not work in multiple classes but the forums I have read says they can.  I have done the steps I've read in the forums and nothing works.  The only way to make it work is to clock each employee in under the class that is selected in their profile and then manually change the class once it is imported into desktop.  PLEASE HELP!!!!

@jessica54 We are struggling, too. Even though we now have classes we can enter per hours in QBOP, when the paycheck is created and the expense is booked (this is within QBO Plus, using QBOP Core), the wages and payroll taxes are *not* allocated by those classes in the expense. Only the default class per employee is used for the payroll expenses.

When we used QuickBooks Desktop Payroll (Enhanced) we *were* able to allocate expenses by class. 

One of my co-workers is attempting to research this more today.

We already have quickbooks desktop and it doesn't work.  Everyone I've talked to says that it can't be done.  As far as I know this feature definitely does not work in the online version

@jessica54 Ah, to clarify, when we were able to use classes in QB Desktop Payroll, it was from entering them directly (and tediously), not using QuickBooks Time.

I'm sorry to hear QB Time imported into Desktop isn't working for classes. Ugh. That IS painful!

In Online, I thought that since we can enter classes, and it loads the hours into Online Payroll, that it would load the expense by classes, too.

I'm wondering if we're missing a setting, or if the classes are only loading for **billing** time, not for the expense side of things.

My clients need classes for the payroll expense side of things. If we find a new trick, we'll post here, but I'm not feeling very hopeful now.

I could be confusing the issue.  When I used the quickbooks online version you can select classes for employees but all employees could only work in one class.  My issue is that my employees switch between classes depending on what they're doing for the day.  Employees can't work in more than one class in online but I was told they could in desktop.  It's so frustrating because my work comp reports are not classed correctly.  I don't have time to manually class 50 employees......

Hello there, @jessica54. 

Yes, multiple classes could be set up for a single employee. The Class tracking feature is really useful for the situation you have. 

We can categorize the works of an employee into different classes in one day like what you've described. We'll just need to enable the settings to assign classes per item because that's where we assign classes to when creating paychecks. 

You can use the same earning item per division or you can create different earning items per division as well. This will also apply to billable jobs performed by employees.

First, we'll enable the settings to associate class to earning items and jobs:

1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences.
2. Select Payroll & Employees and click the Company Preferences tab.
3. Put a checkmark in the Job Costing, Class, and Item tracking for the paycheck expenses checkbox.
4. Select As one class per Earnings item.
5. Click OK to save your changes.

Second, create a paycheck for the employee. Your payroll detail would look like this one. 

When you need to know your expenses per class, just go to Reports, choose Company & Financials, then Profit & Loss by Class. 

Also, for future reference, you can check this article to learn more about tracking payroll expenses by class, department, or location.

You can also have this article handy to know more about customizing reports in QBDT: Understand reports.

Let me know if you have any other QuickBooks or payroll questions, I'll always be here to help you. 

I have already taken all of those steps and it still doesn't work.  When I run a payroll report for my work comp the payroll is only being allocated to the class that is selected in their employee profile and it isn't splitting it between the classes.  If we go in time and make sure each employees class is only to the class that is in their profile and then we import the times we can then go into desktop and manually change the classes on each employee.  This is very time consuming when you have 50 employees.

Would this work if we didn't select any classes in their employee profile and just left that box blank?

Hi jessica54. Allow me to join the thread and clarify things for you when assigning multiple classes to an employee. 

When you set up a class to an employee's profile, the class will not display on the report as the class depends on the employee's transaction.

To have it reported, ensure that the class is associated with the employee’s paycheck.

To have it reported, ensure that the class is associated with each payroll item. 

To enable the settings to associate class to earning items, see the below steps:

1. Go to the Edit menu at the top.
2. Choose Preferences.
3. In the left menu, select Payroll & Employees.
4. Go to the Company Preferences tab.
5. Put a checkmark in the Job Costing, Class and Item tracking for paycheck expenses checkbox.
6. Select Assign one class per Earnings item.
7. Click OK.

After that, create a paycheck and assign classes on the Paycheck Details window for each line item on the Class column. 

Then, to know your expenses per class, you can pull up the Profit & Loss by Class report by going to the Reports menu at the top and choosing Company & Financials.

For more information on how to track your payroll expenses using classes, 

please refer to this article: Tracking payroll expenses by class, department, or location.

Let me know if you have follow-up questions by leaving a comment below. I'm here to help ensure you're able to set up multiple classes for your employee. 

Thank you SO MUCH for this post.  Toggling Class Tracking off and back on finally worked for me too.  Intuit needs to fix this bug!

Hello @GebelAlainaM !

I was having the same issue with adding classes to employees in my QuickBooks Online Payroll. I was able to get it fixed and have assigned the employees their specific classes. But now how can I assign a class to the payroll that has already been processed before I turned on the class tracking in the payroll settings?

Thank you for joining the thread, @PBusinessSolutions.

I’ll help you assign classes to later payroll in QuickBooks Online (QBO) Payroll.

To assign classes to your employees, we must access the Payroll Settings to make the necessary changes. I’ll show you how:

1. From the Gear icon at the top, choose Payroll Settings. 
2. This will open the Preferences page.
3. From there, navigate to the Company and Account section and click on Accounting.
4. Scroll down to the bottom and go to Classes.
5. Choose the option saying, I use different classes for different employees.
6. Click OK to proceed to the next page.
7. Scroll up and you will see the boxes where you can choose classes for each employee.
8. Once updated, click I use different classes for different employees to save the settings.

Also, if the payroll has been directly deposited, you'll have to contact our Payroll Support Team to make the changes for you. Otherwise, if it has been paid via paychecks, you’ll have to delete the paycheck and recreate them.

Furthermore, print your paychecks and pay stubs by checking out this article: Print paychecks and pay stubs in Online Payroll

Feel free to add a reply if you have more questions about assigning classes to your employees. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a good one!

As is typical, there is never an appropriate conversation for how this translates in Desktop.  It is as if there is no desktop software and everything you guys do at Quickbooks only relates to Online.  My guess is there are still more desktop users than online users as Online is not very user friendly.  Of course, neither is desktop as is made obvious based on these questions.

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hello cindyherrmann1,

 

In QuickBooks Online Payroll, you have the option to assign a class for each employee. For now, I'll take note of your question as a product feature request. I'll personally send it to our engineers.

 

Let me share the steps how to assign a class for each employee:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Select Payroll Settings.
3. Choose Accounting.
4. In the Classes section, select I use different classes for different employees.
5. Click on OK.
6. In the Preferences - Employee Classes section, assign a class for each employee. 
7. Click on OK.

If you have any questions, please let us know. We'll be right here to help. 

---

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Hello cindyherrmann1,

 

In QuickBooks Online Payroll, you have the option to assign a class for each employee. For now, I'll take note of your question as a product feature request. I'll personally send it to our engineers.

 

Let me share the steps how to assign a class for each employee:

1. Click on the Gear icon.
2. Select Payroll Settings.
3. Choose Accounting.
4. In the Classes section, select I use different classes for different employees.
5. Click on OK.
6. In the Preferences - Employee Classes section, assign a class for each employee. 
7. Click on OK.

If you have any questions, please let us know. We'll be right here to help. 

---

I recently converted to QuickBooks Online. Is it possible to assign payroll expenses to more than one class for the same employee or can each employee only work in one class?

Hello there, HSBREH.

In QuickBooks, we can only assign one class per employee. That means we can only use 1 workers' compensation per employee.

You may want to read through these articles that tackle worker's compensation and its calculation: 

• Learn about and get workers’ compensation insurance.
• Washington workers' compensation setup and calculations.
• Assign a Workers' Comp Class to an employee.

If you have any other follow-up questions about the payroll expenses, get back to me by commenting below. I'm more than happy to help. Have a great day!

Hello - I see the instructions to assign a class in payroll.  In my situation, employees are assigned to different classes but the class assigned to an employee changes.  Is it possible to leave the class open and assign a class when the hours are entered.  An employee may work 3 different classes in a pay period.  Is this possible? And can you explain how that would be recorded?

IS there a way to assign an employees payroll to a particular CLIENT/JOB ? 

Hi there, @AerialStudio. I want to ensure this will be taken care of. 

Currently, the option to assign an employee's payroll to a particular job or client is unavailable in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

I can see how this option would be beneficial for you and your business. We'd love to hear more of your insights regarding this so I recommend sending feedback to our product developers. This way, they can further review this and consider adding the feature to future updates. Here's how:

1. In your QBO account, navigate to the Gear icon.
2. Next, select the Feedback option.
3. From there, enter the details of your product comments, suggestions, and requests. 
4. Then, click Next to submit. 

Then, to track the suggestion you've submitted, you can visit our Customer Feedback for QuickBooks Online website.

You can also assign employees' time to a project in QBO to track your labor costs and profitability. For a detailed guide, check out this article: Track labor costs.

Keep me posted if you have any other concerns about managing your employee's and clients' transactions in QBO. Don't hesitate to post again here. Have a good day ahead. 

Hi @AerialStudio. Yes. QBO has an option to create projects for each client. Once you create a project you can assign payroll and other payables/receivables to the project. You can run a Profit and Loss report by Project to see how your project is doing.

Some helpful links about QBO Projects:

https://www.firmofthefuture.com/content/using-projects-instead-of-classes-in-quickbooks-online/

https://www.firmofthefuture.com/content/new-for-quickbooks-online-labor-costing-for-projects/

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, but I faced a limitation there, when we select "I use different classes for different employees", we need to select a class for each employee and it tags all transactions with such selected class. Since I need to tag different classes for payroll activity sheet of a single employee, so how I can get PnL by class including payroll expenses.

I'm here to help you run the Profit & Loss by Class report including the payroll expenses, Iftikhar

Beforehand, I would like to commend you for being hardworking in achieving your goal. 

Below are the steps to run the report you want to view together with the payroll expenses:

1. Route your cursor to Reports in the left panel.
2. In the search box type in Profit and Loss by Class.
3. In the right corner click Customize.
4. Edit the date range, and click the Filter dropdown. In the Distribution Account box, locate the Payroll Expenses or you can also include all types of payroll expenses you'll see.
5. Review everything in the customize section for necessary changes, and then click Run report.

Feel free to read these articles for additional references:

• Run reports by class
• Customize reports in QuickBooks Online

Get back to us here if you have other questions or concerns. I'm always here to help. Have a good day!

Hi,

Running payroll for client for the first time this year (seasonal). And the class area under setting is gone...just gone! Help!