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Set up and manage payroll items for your insurance benefit plan
Companies offering insurance benefit plans use QuickBooks to track and manage employee health benefits. You can add, edit, or remove payroll items for medical, vision, and dental insurance to ensure employee paychecks accurately reflect these deductions and company contributions.
Note: If you don’t have an insurance benefit plan, QuickBooks has partnered with Allstate Health Solutions to provide employee health benefit options for Intuit QuickBooks Workforce customers. To learn more, see Sign up for health insurance through QuickBooks and Allstate Health Solutions.
Determine which health benefits to set up
Before adding items in QuickBooks, review your policy with your insurance provider to identify the correct benefit types.
Section 125 plans: These include taxable or pre-tax Cafeteria benefit plans.
Health Savings Accounts (HSA) Plans: Includes taxable, pre-tax, or company-sponsored accounts.
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA): Covers Dependent or Medical Expense accounts.
Talk to your insurance plan provider to learn more about your policy.
Set up insurance items
Once you know the details of the insurance benefits from your provider, follow the steps below to add a payroll item for medical, vision, or dental insurance.
Note: For HSA or FSA items, refer to Set up a Health Savings Account item or Set up a Flex Spending Account(FSA) item.
| Note: Not sure which payroll service you have? Here's how to find your payroll service. |
Intuit QuickBooks Workforce
If you use Intuit Enterprise Suite and have multiple companies, you can see all employees for all of your companies in the consolidated employee dashboard. From any of your companies:
From the Company Switcher dropdown, select Consolidated view.
Go to All Apps
, select Payroll, then select Employees.
From the employee dashboard, you can:
Search for a specific employee
Filter the view to see all employees for a specific company
Customize the info that shows on the dashboard
Make changes to employee info
Here’s how to set up insurance items in Intuit QuickBooks Workforce.
Go to All apps
, then Payroll, then Employees (Take me there).Select the specific employee and then select Job & pay.
In the Deductions and contributions section, select Add or Edit ✎.
Select + Add deduction/contribution.
Set Deduction/contribution to Add deduction/contribution.
Set Deduction/contribution type to Health insurance.
For Type, choose Medical insurance, Vision Insurance, or Dental Insurance.
Note: Use Vision Insurance for pre-tax items not listed, such as commuter benefits or AFLAC.
In the Description (appears on paycheck) field, enter the provider’s name.
Select the calculation method and enter the amount or percent per paycheck.
Select Pre-tax insurance premium or Taxable insurance premium.
Enter matching company contribution details if applicable.
Select Save, then Done.
QuickBooks Desktop Payroll
Use these steps to create health insurance items and assign them to employee profiles.
Step 1: Create payroll items
Go to Lists, then select Payroll Item List.
Select Payroll Item ▼, then New.
Select Custom Setup, then Next.
Select Deduction (for employee pay) or Company contribution (for employer pay), then select Next.
Enter the item name (e.g., medical, vision, dental) and select Next.
Select or add the agency name for liability payments and enter the account number, then select Next.
Set the Tax Tracking Type:
Premium Only/125 for pre-tax items.
None for after-tax items or company contributions.
Select Next three times.
For "None" tax tracking, select net pay in the Gross vs. net window, then select Next.
Leave Default rate and limit fields blank and select Finish.
Step 2: Add the item to an employee profile
Select Employees, then Employee Center.
Select the employee and choose Payroll Info.
In the Additions, Deductions, and Company Contributions section, add the insurance items.
Enter the amount per period and the limit, then select OK.
Each time you pay your employees, these benefits should appear in their paychecks.
Manage existing insurance items
When you edit a provider name, QuickBooks updates historical paychecks automatically.
Edit or remove in Intuit QuickBooks Workforce
Go to All apps
, then Payroll, then Employees (Take me there).Select the employee and Job & pay.
From Deductions & contributions, select Edit ✎.
Select Edit ✎ next to the contribution to modify it, or select the Trash bin icon to remove it.
Select Save, then Done.
Edit or remove in QuickBooks Desktop Payroll
To modify: Go to Lists, select Payroll Item List, right-click the item, and select Edit Payroll Item. Follow the windows to update and select Finish.
To remove: Go to the employee's Payroll Info tab in the Employee Center. Select the item name and amount, then press Delete on your keyboard.
Track insurance benefit plan contribution
If you need to run a report for the Insurance benefit plans, learn how to run payroll reports in Intuit QuickBooks Workforce and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.
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