QBSE and Employee Expenses

Anonymous · ‎November 26, 2018

I know, I know... QBSE has limitations. I poke my head into it every so often because I still find full blown QBO to be tedious. Oddly, there are things QBSE can do that QBO Plus/Essentials does not (mileage being one of them). With that out of the way, here's the situation:

I'm a Single Member LLC/Disregarded Entity in California, which means I still file on Schedule C. This is my main reason for looking at QBSE. But, I also have some employees. Ironically, You can buy QBSE + Turbo Tax Small Business together, but not all of the suggested TT categories are in QBSE.

Specifically, Schedule C Line 26 "Wages" paid to employees of the self-employed business. Right now the only logical place I can figure out that QBSE would let you track this is under "Other Business Expenses" -- but then it can get lumped into all kinds of other numbers.

Is there a special switch or something else that I need to do to activate a category for tracking W2 Wages paid to employees?

JenoP · ‎November 27, 2018

Hi there, Spencer.

Creating a new category for employee payments is currently not available in QuickBooks Self-Employed. Only QuickBooks Online and Desktop have the feature to track W-2 wages. However, both versions do not have an option to file Schedule C.

You might want to temporarily put wages under Other Business Expenses. Then, manually enter the amounts under Wages and Income in TurboTax after exporting your data from QBSE . You can reach out to our TurboTax Support for more details. Here's the link: https://ttlc.intuit.com.

I will send your feedback about tracking wages in QBSE to our product engineers. It will be collated, together with other customer's suggestions, and see if they can use them on future updates.

You can always get back here if you need anything else.

View solution in original post

JenoP · ‎November 27, 2018

Hi there, Spencer.

Creating a new category for employee payments is currently not available in QuickBooks Self-Employed. Only QuickBooks Online and Desktop have the feature to track W-2 wages. However, both versions do not have an option to file Schedule C.

You might want to temporarily put wages under Other Business Expenses. Then, manually enter the amounts under Wages and Income in TurboTax after exporting your data from QBSE . You can reach out to our TurboTax Support for more details. Here's the link: https://ttlc.intuit.com.

I will send your feedback about tracking wages in QBSE to our product engineers. It will be collated, together with other customer's suggestions, and see if they can use them on future updates.

You can always get back here if you need anything else.

Rustler · ‎November 27, 2018

@Anonymous

OK, so you know that regardless of the advertising, QBSE does not follow the schedule C.

QBSE, QBO and QBDT are not tax packages, none of them do the actual tax form, which is why you have to use turbotax in conjunction (or some other tax package).

Full blown QBO is tedious because that is business accounting, and you are in business. Accounting is double entry, and QBSE is single entry bookkeeping (like a personal check book) which is why it is appears less tedious.

since you are in business in CA, and CA has a strange (to the rest of us) sales tax requirement, how do you do sales taxes in QBSE - since QBSE does not do it at all?

Short answer to the question though, is no, there is no switch, or any other kind of work around that would allow you track expenses (or liabilities or assets) in specific accounts as they should be.

Anonymous · ‎November 27, 2018

@Rustler wrote:

since you are in business in CA, and CA has a strange (to the rest of us) sales tax requirement, how do you do sales taxes in QBSE - since QBSE does not do it at all?

That's actually the easiest part. I am a service business that, by the many wonky rules of California, does not provide a taxable service. The past week I've been toying with the QBSE and QBO Plus. While I have been locked into a great deal with Plus for a while, I ignored it and cleanup is going to be ugly... But it also allowed me to tinker without feeling like I could make it worse. :)

Ultimately, QBO Plus is still the better option (I knew that), especially for someone like me that likes to drill down data for multiple service lines (I'm a Mobile DJ, so I can make use of classes and custom reports to break apart revenues from weddings, corporate events, clubs, schools, etc).

I think the main reason was that I chatted extensively with the QBSE team at QB Connect this year. I wanted to believe that the features I wanted (Mileage, Receipts, some of the simplistic single entry) would work. It's hard to believe for my little company it won't, but it's the truth. I should just stay away from QBSE.

Anonymous · ‎November 27, 2018

@JenoP wrote:

Creating a new category for employee payments is currently not available in QuickBooks Self-Employed. Only QuickBooks Online and Desktop has the feature to track W-2 wages. However, both versions does not have an option to file Schedule C.

This was my fear. I don't mind it, partly because I have a CRM for my industry that helps me keep these numbers (wages) clear. I can compare it with Square Payroll and work it all out. But there's a lot in my business that already ends up in Other Business Expenses, so it's just a catch-all that I can't drill down further, leaving QBO Essentials/Plus as probably my best option (I'd say Simple Start, but I don't remember where the limitations are for that version).

VivienJ · ‎November 27, 2018

Hi spencer55,

Thanks for sharing your insights about the response and the workaround provided by my colleague @JenoP.

There are three different QuickBooks Online versions you can choose from. Indeed, the closest one to our Self-Employed subscription is the Simple Start.

You can check out the link below for a detailed comparisons of features available to these versions. From here, you can see which one fits your business needs:

Choose your QuickBooks Online plan

Should you also want to avail our Payroll service, refer to the website below:

QuickBooks Online Payroll

In case you want to pursue switching over to QuickBooks Online, you'll find a step by step guide from this article:

Switch to another version of QuickBooks from QuickBooks Self-Employed

If you need further information about the difference between QBSE and QBO, feel free to leave a response below. I'll be here anytime.

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QBSE and Employee Expenses