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I am a new QB Bookkeeper and just got my first client. They previously used ADP to pay employees but stopped after a few months. They are now looking to use QB for their payroll services. I am a bit confused as to how I can enter the previous payroll into QB. Which accounts should use in the journal entries for Federal Income Tax, Social Security, Medicare, State Income Tax, and State Disability Insurance. Would these be considered expense accounts or liability accounts? Also would they be debits or credits? This is what I have so far.
I'm glad to see you in the Community, terryalize.
I'll share some of the accounts used for manually adding payroll in QuickBooks Online.
Please keep in mind that recording journal entries require an understanding of debits and credits. If you have specific questions regarding the payroll accounts, I recommend reaching out to your accountant or find a ProAdvisor.
As for the screenshot, it looks like you have already added some of the payroll expenses and liabilities.
Here are the list of account you need to create for tracking the payroll:
When creating the journal entry, please make sure to use the info from your client's payroll report. If they paid multiple employees for the pay period, you can combine all of their paycheck totals into one journal entry. Otherwise, create separate journal entries for each employee if you need to break out the details.
Here's how:
Add taxes paid towards 941 or 944 taxes on the third line and choose Payroll Liabilities: Federal Taxes (941/944) for the account. Then, enter the amount as a credit. Note: You can combine the following taxes into one debit, or add each tax item as separate debits: Federal Income taxes, Social Security Employee, Social Security for Employer, Medicare for Employee, and Medicare for Employer.
Add state unemployment insurance taxes and make sure to select the Payroll Liabilities: [State] SUI/ETT Liability account. Then, enter the amount as a credit. Note: You can also combine the following taxes into one debit, or add each tax item as separate debits: State Unemployment Insurance and State Employment Training Tax.
Add the state income taxes by selecting the Payroll Liabilities: [State] PIT/SDI account from the drop-down list. Then, enter the amount as a credit. Note: You can combine the following taxes into one debit, or add each tax item as separate debits: State Personal Income Tax and State Disability Insurance.
Select Payroll Liabilities: Federal Unemployment (940) account to add the federal unemployment taxes (FUTA) and net wages.
Choose the checking account you're paying your employees from and instead of combining them, enter each individual paycheck on separate lines. Then add the amounts on the Credits field.
Hit Save once done.
For reference, you can check out this article: Manually enter payroll paychecks in QuickBooks Online.
To learn more about the features in QuickBooks Online Payroll, you can open this link: Get started with QuickBooks Online Payroll.
Please feel free to leave a comment letting me know how things go after giving this a try. I'll keep an eye out for your reply. Take care.
Thank you so much!
What about for previous contractors payments for accurate 1099?
Hello there, @LCSSMN.
Let me chime in and share some steps to add the Contractors' payments for 1099 in QuickBooks Online.
We can manually add that item in the Chart of Accounts as Payroll Expenses and add them in Journal Entry (JE) and ensure that you select the correct one. Here's how:
Once done, you can now add the items that you wanted to add to the JE. I'll show you how:
Additionally, you can run a payroll summary report to view and see the details of your employees and what you've paid off.
I've also added this article that has detailed information about the basic ways of processing payroll: Payroll 101.
Leave a comment below if you have other questions about managing payroll. I'm here to lend a hand. Take care.
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