Payroll Liabilities (401k)

Good day, @tayd.

Thank you for reaching out to us here on the Community page. I can help you with how to handle this in QuickBooks and ensure you'll be able to reconcile your account.

To start, if you haven't recorded the payment you can write a check to offset the amount of your liability account. This way, you can reconcile your account for that specific period since all the liability is already paid.

Here's how:

1. Click the + New icon.
2. Select Check.
3. Choose the Payee from the drop-down ▼.
4. From the Bank account drop-down ▼, select the account the check withdraws money from.
5. Complete the check fields you need.
6. Select the Print check option if you want to open the check queue to print now. Or select the Print later checkbox if you want to print the check later.
7. Hit  Save and close.

For detailed instruction, click this article: Create and record checks in QuickBooks Online. It also contains steps on how to print your check.

Once done. you can now reconcile your account so they always match your bank and credit card statements. For complete steps, check out this article: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

Just in case your QuickBooks account doesn't match with your bank statement at the end of reconciliation, you can as well open this link for the instructions on how to fix the differences: Fix issues when you're reconciling accounts in QuickBooks Online. 

I'm also sharing our page about employees and payroll taxes in case you need some additional references.

Keep me posted if you have additional questions. I'll get back to assist you further. Wishing you the best in your business endeavors, @tayd.

Hey Joesem

Thanks for the message.  I've been recording the expenses every 2 weeks during the payroll cycle (for example if liability is $500, recording the $500 as a 401k expense).  Can I just clear it out entirely 1 time, do I need to do a massive JE?

Thanks!
tay

thanks!

I was able to offset switching the automatic expense from employee benefits to the liability account (and netted out)

I'm currently trying to figure out how to do this, how did you switch this and set it up?