I need to set up a union deduction per hour?

Hello there, @BFC1.

Thank you for taking the time posting in the Community. Allow me to help share some insight about setting up union dues calculated by hours.

Currently, the option to set a deduction item for Union dues based on per hour worked is unavailable. As you mentioned, the available methods are a flat rate and percent of gross pay. 

In the meantime, you can calculate the deduction manually. If you'll use the flat rate, you can leave it blank on the employee's profile, and just enter the total amount of the deduction when you process your payroll.

For more details about this, I've attached an article about pay types in QuickBooks Online: Supported pay types and deductions explained.

That should point you in the right direction today. The Community is always here if you need more assistance with payroll. I'd be delighted to be your guide once again. Wishing you and your business continued success.

I have the same issue with a few of my employees, and have since I switched to Quickbooks Online awhile back.  It was a feature they had with the desktop version, and I would think they would easily be able to make it work here.  The sooner they can make this happen the easier it would make to do payroll each week!!

I agree with you on this, @tjslater91.

Our developers are doing their best to develop the product in a way that could benefit most of our customers. Please keep in mind that we're always here to listen to your suggestions. Customer's feedback helps our engineers decide on what features should be added to the system. We'd appreciate your patience while they're reviewing this suggestion. 

In the meantime, you can follow the steps provided by my colleague @MaryGraceS in this thread. As a workaround, you can calculate the deduction per hour outside of QuickBooks and convert it to a flat rate so you can enter it in QBO.

If you ever need assistance working within the program, let me know by leaving a comment. I’ll be glad to help. 

Why is available on the desktop version, but not online? Seems to me that the engineering team already has the knowlege of how to make it happen, since they have already suceeded in doing in on desktop.

Exactly! We are 100% union and doing their suggested payroll work around takes FOREVER! Makes no sense that it's not available on online when, you and I both know it's IS available on desktop.....

GRRRRR!!! we should have stuck with desktop, but our accountant talked us into online. It only costs us more money and more time. Not happy with that.

I know how important it is to set up deductions for Union Dues based on per hour work, BFC1.

I'll personally share your feedback with our product team about this one. In the meantime, you can follow the workaround provided by my colleague.

You can also contact your accountant for another convenient way on how to handle the Union Dues deductions in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

To learn more about the feature comparison of QuickBooks Desktop and QBO, you can visit this website: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/move-to-online/.

We have a link here where you find articles on how to manage payroll and employees into your Online account: Payroll and workers. Then, go to the Subtopics section to see the articles you need.

Visit the Community if you need anything else with running payroll. I'm here to help.

We are Union as well, but most are on a percentage rate that is withheld from their payroll rather than per hr. so I manually calculate the per hr.  figure therefore it does not take that long.  As far as costs I am actually saving money with online it all depends on the type of desktop version you had and since they make you upgrade that every 3 years or less due to them discontinuing features, and having to buy a new version.  I also like the fact that I can access this software from anywhere since I am the Accountant for my families construction business, and work part time for a CPA firm.  Also with bouncing around from the office to job sites it makes it easier.  Now with all that being said there are several things I feel they could work on to make the experience even better as both a business user and an accountant user.  First being the deductions per hr. basis, and the others being able to easily add deductions like union dues to box 14 of the w2's since they are still tax deductible in some states.  Another major one I have had issues with is being able to assign an employee to multiple work sites within the same week in different areas with different withholding rates.  Such as Philadelphia, PA which has a higher withholding for nonresidents working within the city vs. outside of the city where it is typically their normal withholding rate which is substantially lower.  If they could work on these especially as well as a few others it would make QBO a much better product.  I would even be willing to talk or work with their product engineers to better explain these issues.

"In the meantime, you can calculate the deduction manually. If you'll use the flat rate, you can leave it blank on the employee's profile, and just enter the total amount of the deduction when you process your payroll."

Where is this entered when processing payroll?

Hello @AStueb,

You can manually enter the deductions by reviewing your employee taxes before submitting the payroll. Let me show you how.

1. Go to Payroll.
2. Select Employees.
3. Click Run payroll.
4. Enter all the wages earned by your employee.
5. Select Preview payroll.
6. Click the Pencil icon.
7. Manually enter the deduction amount.
8. Click Submit payroll.

Additionally, I've also included this helpful article for the steps in printing one of your employee's paycheck: Learn more about the printing preferences of a paycheck in QuickBooks.

You can always leave a comment below or start a new thread if you have any other questions.

Has this been fixed yet, or are you still not able to enter a rate/hr. for union related benefits?

I can see how you wanted to enter a rate/hour for union related benefits, @LCB03.

Right now, it's still one of the non-supported pay types in QuickBooks Online (QBO). In the meantime, you may calculate the deduction manually. And if you'll utilize the flat rate, you can leave it blank on the employee's profile. Then, enter the total amount of the deduction when you process your payroll.

We always work to balance adding new enhancements and features in QBO. You may want to send product suggestion straight to our developers for possible inclusion in future updates. 

To send feedback, follow the below steps:

1. Go to the Gear icon at the top.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions. 
4. Then select Next to submit feedback.

These requests and suggestions are forwarded directly to the Product Development Team for review. Also, they let them know what feature works best for you as a QuickBooks user.

You may also visit our Feedback forum page. From there, you can see a list of other QuickBooks users who already suggested this feature, as well as the recent updates in QuickBooks.

Additionally, you might also want to run payroll reports in QBO. This will help you view useful information about your business and employees. 

If there's anything else I can help with in processing payroll or other QuickBooks tasks, feel free to post here anytime. I'm always here to lend a hand. Have a good day.

I was so excited to finally convince my boss to switch us to QBO from QBDT this time around when our desktop needed to be upgraded. I get it all transferred over, and oh no--our historical payroll, pay rates, and payroll data doesn't transfer. Because QBDT has *more* features than QBO. That's embarrassing. Oh well, I'll spend and entire 2 days getting that all set up, because it will be worth it in the long run. But this union dues deduction is my end game. All but 3 of our employees are union, with a per hour deduction that needs to come off their paychecks. I am not manually entering that amount for each employee. Don't you understand how easy it is to make a mistake doing it that way? We're not paying this much for payroll software to have to manually calculate amounts on every paycheck. How ridiculous. This thread is THREE years old and QBO *still* hasn't made this simple addition?? I'm honestly flabbergasted by this. A super simple deduction that is readily available in QBDT, but you can't be bothered to add it to QBO? I'm done. Guess I'm going back to my boss with my tail between my legs, asking him to change us back to desktop. And after I've wasted 2 days messing with this to try and make it work for us. He'll be so happy. 

QB is not union friendly. They are missing out on so many union contractors in the US and Canada.

3 years later and QBO has neglected this

So I was chatting with QuickBooks on Thursday (01/05/23) about another issue I was having and while I was chatting with them I asked them about this thread.  I sent them a link to the thread, and asked them if there was anything in the works or if there was something they could do about this issue.  After reviewing everything the team member said that they would create a support ticket with the engineering team to have them look into this for one of their future updates.  I do have a personal reference number that they emailed to me a few hours after the ticket was created, so hopefully this is some good news.  I do plan to follow up with them towards the end of next week to try and stay on top of this so we can hopefully get an update that included this as an option.

I have the answer to the per hour thing. Hopefully they get to that sooner than later. We are 100% union, aside from me. I was wondering if someone could help me, that is union. We are IBEW Union and I have having issues allocating the employer paid benefits such as NEBF and NEAT (an others) to a contribution item in each employees profile. The contribution doesn't seem to fit any of the choices. I also need to track these funds as payroll items. Any help is much appreciated. I am new to it all. 

Kindly,

E

We're happy to have you in the Community forum, EMW21. Thanks for reaching out to us.

You can set up pre-tax or after-tax deduction items in QuickBooks Payroll. You may want to reach out to your plan administrator or an accountant if you have any questions about how the deduction is taxed.

Here's how to set up deductions in QuickBooks Online Payroll:

1. Go to Payroll, then Employees. Select your employee.
2. From Deductions & contributions, click Start or Edit.
3. Select + Add deduction/contribution from the  Deduction/contribution dropdown.
4. Select a Deduction/contribution type and Type, then add a description. 
5. Select whether you want the deduction calculated as a flat amount or a percentage of the gross pay. Then enter the amount or percentage.
6. Click Save, then Done.

For more detailed instructions and to know how to set up specific deduction items, please read this article: Set up, change, or delete employee-paid payroll deductions.

You can refer to this article to learn how to set up company-paid contributions to an employee's retirement or health insurance plan in QuickBooks Online Payroll: Set up and manage company contributions.

You can also keep track of your payroll expenses in QuickBooks Online Payroll. It allows you to organize your data by department, business office, or separately owned properties.

Please let me know if you have further questions about allocating employer-paid benefits to a contribution item in each employee's profile. I always look forward to assisting you.

Thanks for the reply, but that wasn't my question. My question was a employer paid contribution, but the contribution I am making doesn't fit any of the choices QB is making me select. It's not healthcare, retirement or ANY of the choices.  

Please ignore the Quickbooks Team member who responded to your post as what they gave you will not be helpful to you. Since I work as a controller for a Union contractor, and a CPA Firm that deals with Quickbooks Online on both sides of the fence I have used a few tricks to get around this myself seeing both sides of the fence. I have a few options that I have used when trying to run my Employer Contributions through Quickbooks Online for Operators and Laborers for the Fringe Benefits.

Option 1 - Leave these out of your Payroll system all together, and when you do the monthly report to pay everything create a journal entry to enter them into Quickbooks. The biggest downfall to this would be that they do not show up on the payroll reports within Quickbooks Online, but they will be listed within your expenses in your profit and loss.

Option 2 - This option is much more technical and needs proper mapping within Quickbooks Online to work correctly, and unless you are very knowledgeable with Quickbooks and Accounting itself you should seek additional help from your accountant. This is where my experience as an internal corporate controller/accountant, and an accountant at a CPA Firm came in handy. Most Union Benefits paid for an employee fall into 2 categories which are Retirement and Fringe Benefits (i.e. Medical, Prepaid Legal, etc.). My employees that are Union do not pay anything into the retirement benefits provided by the Unions, which Quickbooks does have a deduction/contribution option that is listed as a "company-only plan". You can set this up under the individual employees by clicking "Add deduction/contribution", you will then open a new window where you will again select "Add deduction/contribution", next select "Retirement Plans", under type select "Company-only plan", then enter the description of the deduction/contribution, and lastly you can either setup a percentage or if it is by the hour you will need to select flat amount to be able to adjust it by the hour. I have both percentage and per hour deductions and contributions dealing with both IUOE and LIUNA. The Fringe portion has been a little trickier for me to trick Quickbooks into showing/omitting it correctly on quarterly and annually payroll tax forms. I have found that the best way to show the remaining Fringe Benefits is to set up another deduction however instead of choosing "Retirement Plans" you select "Health Insurance", the type should be "Medical Insurance", enter the description you wish to note, set the employee deduction to "none", set the company contribution to either flat amount or percentage. Now that was tricky, but the even trickier part is the mapping of the accounts these are posted to within the general ledger portion of Quickbooks Online. Which is under the gear icon>payroll settings>Accounting (All the way at the bottom) This is where the Accounting knowledge really comes in handy.

Option 3 - Unfortunately doesn't exist yet unless Quickbooks finally makes an option that I have been trying to get them to make which is an other contribution option that allows a company contribution option similar to their other deduction option.

Just to expand on what I already mentioned in Option 2.  Quickbooks can be setup to report Fringe Benefits that are non-medical insurance related under the medical insurance section. It is especially easier to do this if you are not filing your payroll reports through Quickbooks.

Thank you so very much! This is very helpful. I was just worried about that taxes. Currently I do have option 1 done, to keep track of things. I really hope QB gets this for us soon. It would really streamline things for Union companies. 

Thanks so much for this. Option 1 won't work for me because the issue that QB is lacking is calculating the dues the employees pay on each check. So it has to be a part of payroll, to deduct from and show up on their check each week. Like the QB employee above who thought they were helping, but didn't bother to read any of the actual comments first, QB is only set up to deduct those dues as a percentage of gross, or as a set amount. No calculating by hours worked. Which was a standard option in QB Desktop. 

I'll talk to my accountant to see if option 2 is doable. What I'm doing right now is I set each of their hourly dues rates as the set deduction amount for that employee, just to have a number to stick in there. Then I added a formula to their weekly timesheets in excel that calculates their dues each week based on their number of hours worked (or paid, as I have employees that have both) and then I manually enter that amount of their dues deduction for that week for each employee when I'm running payroll. It's ridiculous that I have to do that workaround and spend all that extra time doing something that seems like a really easy addition for QB to add, not to mention the multiple human error ways it can be entered incorrectly, but it's doable. 

Not sure if anyone has noticed yet, but they have finally added a per hour worked deduction option within online payroll.

do you all use a different app or program for your union payrolls?