Could someone explain why my payroll is showing up as a double transaction entry as an expense and payroll check? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Welcome to the Community, casey28.
 

Payroll checks would be considered expenses. To verify my understanding, are you seeing two transactions for an identical amount on a report or the same transaction being called two different things on different reports?
 

I've included a detailed resource about payroll expenses that may come in handy moving forward: What are payroll expenses for employers?

I'll be looking forward to hearing back from you. Have an awesome day!

It's only showing up as one in my list of expenses, but on my monthly P&L, the wages cost is double what I am paying out. It seems as if it is counting the gross when I pay, and then adding in the net to the employee when the direct deposit is made. I apologize if I am not doing a good job of explaining this. Right now, my monthly wages expense is around $2,400, but on the P&L, it jumps to $4,300.

I appreciate your help. I'm not sure if my first response went through. The payroll is showing up only once on my list of expenses; however, on my monthly P&L, the wages expense is nearly double the actual amount. For instance, payroll so far this month is $2,300, but on the P&L, it shows my wages expense as being nearly $4,400. It seems as if it is including the gross amount when I do payroll, and then adding in the net amount when the direct deposit goes through. I apologize if I am doing a poor job of explaining this.

I got your point, @ casey28. Let me chime in and provide some insights about a double amount of your wage expenses.

A double amount could be because of an added transaction in your online banking instead of simply matching this. To fix this, we can undo downloaded transactions and match them once again. 

To undo a transaction, here's what we need to do:

1. Select the Banking menu or Transactions menu.
2. Choose the Banking tab.
3. Click the tile for the bank or credit card account you downloaded the transaction.
4. Select the Categorized tab.
5. Locate the transaction you want to unmatch.
6. Click the blue transaction link in the Added or Matched column to see the matched transaction.
7. Choose Undo from the Action column.

This disconnects the two transactions. The original downloaded transaction will go back to the For Review tab. Follow these steps to find the match.

In addition, you may open this link to learn how to use bank rules in QuickBooks. This helps automatically classify transactions from your bank: Set up bank rules to categorize online banking transactions. 

Feel free to get back to this thread if you have an additional question about your payroll expenses. I'll be around to lend a helping hand. Keep safe always.

Hi there, did you discover an answer to this? I am wondering the same thing. Thanks!

I'm wondering, too!  I'm having the same issue...it's showing that I have  "gross pay-this is not a legal pay stub" on my P&L under wages and this amount is the gross amount.  Then there is an expense for the net amount.  It has completely screwed up my books.  I know I can't delete the gross pay entry because that will delete it from the history so I'm not sure how to correct it.  This is for Quickbooks Online.  I think the example provided was for Quickbooks Desktop, maybe?

Thanks for joining here, LDLane. I'll provide further clarification on this matter.

The steps shared above apply to QuickBooks Online. We can follow the same steps below to correct your Profit and Loss report. As advised, we need to match bank data instead of adding them to the bank feed.

 If that's the case, we can undo the added transaction first. Here's how:

1. Go to the Banking menu.
2. In the Banking tab, choose the account.
3. Go to the Categorized tab and tick the box for the transaction.
4. Then, press the Undo button and then hit Continue.
   
   

Once done, it will be visible in the For Review column. When QuickBooks downloads bank data, it tries to find a match with any QuickBooks transactions already entered. If you agree with the match information shown in the row, click the Match button or else, click Find Match. This will match with the existing QuickBooks transaction. 

For details, we can review this link: Categorize and match online bank transactions.

To manage your Profit and Loss report and bank transactions, we can review the links below:

• Customize and memorize reports.
• Run a Profit and Loss report by bank account in QuickBooks Online.
• Keep bank transactions organized.

You're always welcome to post your other concerns in this thread. I'll be around to help you fix QuickBooks reports and manage your payroll. Stay safe and be well.

I'm having the same problem: The net amount I'm paying my employees is categorized as an Expense on the banking feed for my business checking account.  And then on P&L reports, Quickbooks Payroll is sending its data (which is gross payroll costs).  These two entries do not "match" bc they are different amounts. Quickbooks can't find a match when I try. One is the net pay and the other is gross pay.  The difference is "balanced" by expense payments made to tax agencies, categorized as "Payroll Taxes."  NET PAY + PAYROLL TAXES = GROSS PAY ("Payroll Check" on P&L)

So how am I suppose to tell the P&L report to exclude the NET PAY entries categorized as "Expense" ? 

Ps I'm a novice here.  I really don't understand how Match works except for transfers. 

Has a solution to this been reached yet?  I just spent an hour chatting with a Quickbooks agent and they tried everything they could think of while screen sharing and they weren't able to remedy the issue.  If you have a solution I'd love to know, thank you!

Hi LDLane, did you ever find out how to fix this problem?  Thank you!

Thanks for joining this forum, @iDoc1600. I appreciate your patience with our Chat Support team. 

It seems like there's a double entry on the banking side. To resolve this issue, you can exclude the transactions from the Banking page and manually clear the ones you recorded in the register.

Here's how to exclude the transaction: 

1. Go to the Bookkeeping menu, then select Banking.
2. Go to the the For Review tab, then tick the checkbox of the transactions to exclude.
3. Click Exclude.

Once done, following these steps below to clear the transaction:

1. Go to the Accounting tab on the left menu, then click Chart of Accounts.
2. Click the View register link of the bank account the transaction is recorded.
3. Select the transaction to expand, and under the Reconcile column (indicated by a check mark.
4. Click the blank field until you see the letter C. This means Cleared and R means Reconciled. 
5. Hit Save.

For future reference, check out this resource to guide you more: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online. 

Let me know if you still have more concerns about managing your transactions in QuickBooks. I'll be here to guide you some more. 

How would you do this on Quickbooks Desktop version? These menu options are not available on there.

How would you do this on Quickbooks Desktop version? These menu options are not available on there.

Good day, @mhelfrich.

I want to help you, but I need more details to discern your concern better. What instructions provided above are you referring to? Additional information is appreciated.

In case you need articles and tips about managing your company’s data, you can visit our Support page anytime. You can also bookmark our Resource Center. It has free tools and bookkeeping basics you need to organize your records and ensure they’re accurate.

Write soon once those details are ready. The Community team is always here to help you out. Take care!

Has this been figured out? I am having the same issue. My payroll is all of a sudden showing up as a Payroll Check and an Expense (the same as the original example) in my P & L. I have unmatched the transactions in the P & L that are expenses so that I do not have any double transactions but I still need to clear them in the account register. When I select "Find Match" only the bills come up to match. Also, the payee is all coming up as the same person. I do not know what happened here. Please help. 

Thanks for joining the discussion, @mgilkessmith.

We want to make sure you're able to match your transactions in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

When finding matching transactions we can check the filters and paycheck if they are on the right account. This way, it will appear on the Find Match page. You can review them on your Payroll settings page. 

Here's how:

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Tap Payroll settings.
3. Under the Preferences section, click Accounting.

Review the accounts assigned and make the necessary changes if necessary.

Open this article for additional information: Payroll accounting preferences. 

See this article as well: Change your payroll bank account. In case you wish to change the bank account for direct deposits and payroll taxes. 

Additionally, you can pull up a variety of payroll reports in QBO. This will give you a closer look at your employee's total wages, deductions, and tax information in a certain period, kindly refer to this article: Run payroll reports.

Post a reply below if you have other questions about your QBO company. I'll be around to help you out.

@DebSheenD the link to the accounting preferences article is not working.

Also, my accounting preferences are correct. 

Here are two screenshots showing how my pay comes up. The top is viewing the account where my wages are going. The "Expense" transaction is the net pay and the "payroll" check is the full gross pay. 

In the second shot, this is how the expense transactions are now showing in my Review Transactions for my bank account. 

 I appreciate your reply, @mgilkessmith.

Allow me to chime in on this thread to point you in the right direction of support to help you fix this concern with your payroll transactions showing up as payroll checks and expenses in QuickBooks Online.

Thanks for following the steps given by my colleague above to check your accounting preferences and verify the setup. Since it didn't fix your query, I'd recommend contacting our Payroll Support Team. You can have a screen-sharing session with them in a safe environment and have them check your account to investigate this matter further.

Here's how you can reach out to them:

1. Go to Help (?), then click Contact Us.
2. Please enter your question and select Let's talk.
3. Review and Select from the following: Ask the community, Have us call you, or Chat with us.

Please consider checking their available hours so they can address your concerns promptly.

I'll be around if you need further assistance with your payroll. I'm very eager to help. Take care always!

Hello,

I am having these exact same issues the previous users on this thread spoke about. I inherited this mess from a previous employee. I can see where the "gross pay-this is not a pay stub" is entered for the account direct deposits payable. I have followed all the directions on this page in an attempt to correct this error in reporting. I can not figure it out! So I tried clicking the link provided for the Payroll Account Settings tutorial, and low and behold it DOESNT work. I'm at a complete loss! I have attached a link of the transactions with splits report so anyone that may be able to help can see what I am seeing.

We appreciate you for performing the steps to resolve your issue, @SCMOFF

Let me help you with this. To provide you with the exact reason behind the issue of your payroll report showing up as expense and check.

I highly recommend contacting our live support team, they have the complete resources to pull up your account and check the root cause of your payroll report issue.

To contact support, here's how: 

1. On the upper right corner select Help (?)  then click Contact Us.
2. Reiterate your question and choose Let's talk.
3. You can choose from the following: Have us call you, or Chat with us.

Please consider checking their available hours so they can address your concerns promptly.

You can read through these articles if you want to Customize and memorize reports.

If you have additional queries about payroll reports, never hesitate to contact us again. We'll be happy to lend a hand. Keep safe.

I would immediately move to Quickbooks Desktop if you have the ability to!

Quickbooks Online is EXTREMELY glitchy and their customer service isn't much help.

Have you found a solution?  I have the same problem and have spent hours speaking with Quickbooks Support and they have not resolved the issue.

Hi EKS-NCC,

Thank you for joining the conversation. I'll provide additional details about how paychecks are posted. 

Paychecks are categorically expenses, so they should be reported in your expense account, particularly the Payroll Expense account. This is not doubling your expenses. QuickBooks is just doing the double-entry bookkeeping.

Please note that a single paycheck can affect many accounts because the amounts are divided into contributions, taxes, different types of wages, SS, Maxicare, etc. Each of these portions has a corresponding category in your Chart of Accounts. So these portions are posted into those categories during the pay run. That's how QuickBooks records the double-entry bookkeeping in the background, which is common practice in accounting. I recommend consulting an accountant about this matter. They are more capable of explaining the accounting side of transactions.

During payroll also, only the net pay amount will be posted or taken out from the bank account. But eventually, when you pay the taxes to your tax agency, those remaining amounts for tax payments will also be taken out from your bank account.

You can also reach out to our QBO Payroll Support so you have a screen-sharing session, and they can explain the affected categories of a paycheck while you're looking on the same page. It's much easier that way.

If you have other questions in mind, feel free to go back to this thread.

This is not the correct response. Please read the questions again or do not try to provide an answer if you dont know what your talking about.