Net payroll shows up as transaction under project transactions tab

@awoodsrei, we hear your sentiments and understand your feelings on this matter. I am aware of the impact these challenges have on how your company operates with QuickBooks.

I appreciate you taking the time to try to troubleshoot this issue with us. Please know that this isn't the experience we want you to have. Feel assured that we will share your feedback so that we can improve the level of customer service we offer to both you and other users.

You can visit this article for your reference in managing payroll moving forward: Create and run your payroll.

Reach out to us again if you have further QuickBooks-related concerns. We're willing to assist you at any time. Keep safe!

Thank you for your reply. However, although this is somewhat payroll related, it is not entirely payroll related.  The payroll portion (direct deposit, cost accounts for payroll costs, etc.) are working properly.  The timesheets are populating the time activity under the project and the payroll (when you click on 'run payroll').  However, the fact that the net payroll for every employee that works on a given project (and on each of those projects) shows up as a transaction (cost against the project) in addition to all the other items is totally erroneous!  I do not know what team would actually deal with this -- the core team, the project team, the payroll team, or ???

Bottom line.... this is a BUG in QuickBooks Online (I don't know if the same thing is happening on the desktop version) AND QuickBooks / Intuit as basically refusing to address the problem.  At one point, I am told by the escalation team that it isn't happening often enough and with enough regularity for the root cause to be investigated.  Then, I am told that it is supposed to happen that way and that there is an open investigation as to why it was not happening correctly in the past.  If this is true and it has been "fixed", why investigate why it used to happen?  Investigate why it is happening now, not in the past.... the exact opposite of what the latest agent told me.

But, in my experience with QuickBooks support over the last 6-8 months, has been deplorable!  This is not the only issue for which I have received poor to non-existent support.  However, it is the one that has caused the greatest difficulty and issues in our system and the only one for which I have been unable to find a solution on my own (which I have done after hours of phone calls and chats on issues in the past and being told by your support team that they did not know what was happening or why).

QuickBooks / Intuit needs to cross-train their support teams so they do not have to pass around their customers on issues like this.  Currently, your teams are so "pigeon-holed" that they have no idea what to do or what to say on an issue that "touches" multiple aspects of the system as this one does.  If only there was a team to which we could speak that would have expertise in multiple aspects of the system.  Further, why does the support agent have to "communicate separately" to the escalation or upper-level support?  Why can't they connect us all together on the call so it takes less time and the escalation or upper-level support can hear/see what is going on first-hand.  I think that would help things along a great deal.  The amount of time it takes to do it the current way -- back and forth over and over again, never hearing what the customer actually says) is very frustrating and counter productive!  

One other thing -- is there a reason your agents don't look through the notes and/or chat above to get an idea of what is happening so they are not asking questions over again that have already been answered and addressed?  At one point, I asked the agent to which I had been transferred, to take a moment and look through the notes/earlier chat to review what had already been said/done. However, instead of doing so, she asked the same questions all over again causing yet more frustration.  When I asked if she had read through it, she said that she could see it -- but apparently had not actually read through the information and was not interested in doing so.  If this would be something that the agents do as a normal routine, that would be helpful for all involved and would cut down on the duplication and time required to "get to the bottom of the issue".

In any case, it would be greatly appreciated if someone would take up this issue and find out why it is happening and what can be done to remedy the situation and get the bug fixed.

After extensive off-line testing (not on a chat or phone call with QuickBooks support), it appears that the issue is in the interaction between the "weekly timesheets" that are created to charge the project hours to the projects (not intending to have the net payroll costs show up under every project) and the project costing itself.  However, simply deleting and recreating the timesheets after the payroll has been run and the payroll DD transactions appear under the project transactions tab does not work (clarification: we are not using QuickBooks time but simply creating new "weekly" or "single" timesheets using the top left gear icon and selecting the appropriate timesheet to be created). 

If, however, you simply use the payroll process to enter the total hours at the time payroll is run, and then AFTER payroll has been run (and deposited) and QBO has been populated, you can create your timesheets to charge the hours against the project and "poof" the error goes away.  The caveat is that you must then go back and create the timesheets to charge the project hours after the fact (a pain, I must admit).

If you create these timesheets BEFORE payroll has been completed and the transactions are populated into QuickBooks (typically the day the payroll direct deposits are made), the issue returns and the net payroll appears under the transactions tab on the projects (each and every one each of the employees "touch") and you must then JE them out of the project costs -- to and from the same account (from your chart of accounts) one with and one without the project identified.  At this point, it doesn't really matter which specific account you use as long as you identify the project in the credit and not in the debit side of the transaction (JE) as it zeros out.

Unfortunately, this workaround creates more work as the time is then entered into QuickBooks twice -- once on the timesheet and once on the payroll pages.  However, this may be less work and frustration than having the net payroll show up under the project costs and then needing to create journal entries for every employee and every project on a weekly basis until such time that QuickBooks actually gets the message that this is a BUG and that an investigation needs to be performed to identify the root cause and the issue fixed.  It has not always worked this way and should not work this way now -- regardless of what some agents will tell you.

I am not saying that I am happy with the workaround / creative solution, only that there is a possible workaround until such time that QBO can get their act together on the matter and fix the bug.

Not just payroll, it does it for bills too. So if I have a bill to a vendor and it has three project materials on it.  So let's say the bill is 12 and each project costs 4. The bill will say 12 on all three projects. Now, it does seem to compute correctly on the overview but you can't just export or print the transactions because they are not split. Unbelievable that this is okay.

Agreed!  We have been breaking out the orders to our vendors so that they are billed on a project-by-project basis, assigning PO's to each of the "pieces" separately, rather than as a whole so this does not happen.

My only suggestion is that if you don't separate the order on a project-by-project basis, that you break-out the bill into pieces and enter only the part that pertains to that specific project and reference the same invoice number on each of the transactions (you could add a suffix to the invoice number if you would like), and then when the bill is paid, click on all of the "pieces" of the bill.  I know that this is not an ideal solution, however, it may be a work-around that can be used until QB actually addresses the problem and fixes the bug.

Good luck! 

QuickBooks support, has there been any action on this issue by QuickBooks?  I have heard nothing further.

@SirielJeaB 

Did this get escalated? It is all over the feedback.

QB implemented projects but the transaction page is incorrect. It refers to the entire paycheck of the employee not just the hours worked and refers an entire bill even if the bill is split. This goes for any any all transactions on the project transaction page. This is ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE, that means financial entries and representation of $spent should display correctly in the software. The transaction page needs to be a split report to ensure only the correct costs to project are showing. Otherwise you have to drill down into every category from the overview page. 

To your point, I tried to get it investigated and escalated months ago but the latest feedback from QB support was that "it was working properly and as designed" but that they had opened an investigation as to why it had not been working properly in the past..... for what purpose?  Why would you investigate something that happened (or didn't happen) in the past, if you believe it was fixed and have confirmed that it is working as designed with your latest update?  Wouldn't that have been part of an earlier investigation, not one that is opened after the update that "fixed" it??

Based on my own observations in our own books, it had been working (previously) and they "fixed" it and now it is not working as it should... and I told the multiple support agents precisely that.  I never received any further feedback or questions regarding my ticket, nor on the "investigation" they were performing. My suspicion is that this has been dropped as all has been silent on that front, at least all communication to me specifically has been dropped.

I agree... this is accounting software and should provide an accurate picture of your costs (and income, etc.), but the way it works now, that is not the case.  I have requested additional feedback from support but have not received any response.  Do we all need to scream at QB to get some answers and action on this issue?  Just me screaming doesn't seem to be working and I have all but given up in getting QB to even acknowledge that there is an issue.

Oh there is an issue...it didn't use to be like this.  They messed it up along the way. I guess enough people aren't using project costing. I am going to search some other threads to see what I can find.

OK, good luck!

@awoodsrei I am searching outside of quickbooks. I did just post this

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/reports-and-accounting/will-project-costing-transa...

I have a meeting with Oracle Tuesday. This last round of reporting and invoice upgrades was really the last straw for me. It would be different if they were actual upgrades but I have lost functionality every time they update the UI.

Understood and agreed.... Maybe we need to start charging QB for the time we have to spend fixing transactions in our accounts that are caused by their inability to focus on the issues and get the core functionality fixed.  This is becoming an exercise in futility, as nobody at QuickBooks is actually listening, but money talks....  just a thought.