Independent Contractors

If you made any Payment through the Payroll service in 2022, that will need to remain in your Payroll Acct as before. 

Moving forward, it sounds like you are going to handle these 1099 Contractors as Vendors.  So simply set them up as a Vendor and any checks you make out to them will paid to this "Vendor" even if it's just their name and personal SS# (vs EIN).

You'll also need to set up Expense Accounts in your Chart of Accounts for the various type of work these Contractors do.  I would set up a primary Expense Account called something like Contractor Payments and then Sub Accounts to be more specific as to what the various Contractors do for you.  Don't go crazy with every little nitch, but at the same time make as may as needed.  And this would be a great time to discuss this with your Tax Accountant as they may have some input.  And better to set it up the way they want now and not have to go back and change it.  I have no clue what your business is, but it might look something like:

Contractor Payments

- Framing & Roofing

- Pluming

- Electrical

- Millwork

I would suggest your Contractors Invoice you if they can.  But if not, go in yourself and create an Invoice every month and then pay that Invoice to keep a trail. I would make it as detailed as possible, so don't put in one line item for all the hours or fees for the month.  Put in the hours per day if they work randomly through the month or a weekly total if that's how they work.  But remember this is your record of what you paid for (similar to what you probably had to do for Payroll).

For the Invoice number I've suggested to people to use the year then month to make it easy to sort if you export reports to Excel.  (eg: 2022-01 or if you want it shorter 22-01, 22-02, etc.) 

Thank you so very much for your fast response and taking the time to share examples.  I'm new to this and most grateful to you!

If I am just starting Quickbooks today (2023), is there a way to input payments made from 2022 by papercheck? 

Welcome to the Community, @TVanSpriell.

I'd be glad to help you enter the contractor's payments from last year in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

To do this, we can create a check to add the contractor's payment in QuickBooks.  I'll show you how:
 

1. Choose Expense.
2. Tap Contractors/Vendors.
3. Look for the vendor's name.
4. Clicking on the arrow drop-down menu on the Contractors page, then select Write check. 
5. Add the deductions and the expense accounts, then click on Save and Close. 

Need more details about voiding or deleting checks for corrections? Check out this article for more information: Void or cancel contractor payments. 

Are you managing 1099 contractors in QuickBooks? We'll want to bookmark and read this article for a guide if you need help creating their 1099 forms in the future: Create and file 1099s using QuickBooks Online. 

Do you have more questions about managing vendor transactions? Or do you need to do some other tasks in QuickBooks? Let me know and I'll clarify the details, or lay down some guides for you. 

If you're moving from an older version of QBs to QB2023, all of your prior records will be there.

If you're brand new to QBs, then the only options would be to see if you can download a file from your bank and import it into QBs.  So check to see if you can download all of 2022 in a QBO file (QB Online) or a QFX or CSV file (QB Desktop).  The only other option is to manually enter the transactions.

Remember that if you enter the Checking your reports may be off for 2022.  To get clean reports you'd also have to have all the Invoices to your Clients and Bills from your Vendors put into QBs.  But for just for historical records, the more you can import into QBs the better.  Just remember about the missing info if you run a Report for All Dates.

Also, there will be a fair amount of manual entries you'll need to do after you import the Transactions.  The Import will not know what Category the Checks are for (Expense payment, Salary, etc.) or where the Deposits came from (Income vs. Owner contribution, etc.).  So plan of a fair amount of time cleaning things up.  And one other thing you may want to do before you import the Checking transactions is to review your Chart of Accounts and make sure what you need it there.  QBs is pretty good about getting the general entries, but you may break out your Income into various Sub Accounts or some other Expense Accts may have Sub Accounts.  You can do it while you're cleaning up the entries, but sometimes it's easier to set things up in advance.

One other note if you're truly new to QBs.  The Bank Feed is a great tool, but a lot of people think it is to Auto Enter all of your Bank Transactions.  It's not and a lot of people get their books all messed up.  The Bank Feed is there to Match to entries you've already made into QBs.  So you should only occasionally have an entry that is not already in QBs.  And that should raise a red flag as to why you don't know about this transaction.  (Usually they are some annual auto payment to something you haven't set up an auto entry for, but every once it a while it will be a bank error that pops out instantly!)