Learn how to set up and assign pay schedules to pay your employees in QuickBooks payroll.
Do you use pay schedules to run payroll and pay your employees? Do you have more than one? With QuickBooks payroll products, you can group your employees according to their pay schedule. This helps you manage your payroll and make processing more efficient.
Here are the types of pay schedules you can assign your employees to:
Weekly: Pay your employees every week on a specific, recurring day of the week. Many businesses schedule paydays every Friday, which makes 52 payouts per year.
Every other week or Bi-weekly: Pay your employees every two weeks. If you schedule payday for every other Friday, you have 26 payouts per year.
Twice a month or Semi-monthly: Pay your employees twice a month. The 1st pay can be in the middle of the month, and the 2nd is at the end. The common payouts for this schedule is every 15th and 30th of the month. That makes 24 payouts per year.
Monthly: Pay your employees once a month on a specific, recurring date. This makes 12 payouts a year.
Create and manage pay schedules
To set up, assign, or update pay schedules choose your product below, follow the steps for the payroll product you use:
From the Pay schedule ▼ dropdown, select the pay schedule for the employee moving forward. Or, to create a new pay schedule, select + Add pay schedule.
Fill out the appropriate fields. Then select Save.
When you're done, select Save.
If you want to edit the pay period, you must select or enter the correct pay period ending.
Payroll schedules are optional. You may have up to 200 payroll schedules in QuickBooks Desktop.
Create a payroll schedule
Go to Employees, then select Payroll Center.
Select the Payroll Schedule ▼ dropdown then New.
Enter a name for the schedule and choose how often you'll pay employees on the schedule.
Complete the remaining fields, then select OK.
Select Yes or No if you would like to assign the new schedule to all your employees.
Assign a pay schedule to an employee
Go to Employees, then select Employee Center.
Double-click the employee's name.
Select the Payroll Info tab.
Select the Payroll Schedule ▼ dropdown.
Select the Payroll Schedule that you wish to assign to this employee.
Select OK to save.
Update a pay schedule
If you change the dates while creating payroll from the Enter Payroll Information window, the changes only affect the current pay period. To update all upcoming payroll schedules:
Note: If you use Direct Deposit or QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Assisted, the Process Payroll On date and Check date are adjusted to include transmit lead times and federal holidays.
Go to Employees, then select Payroll Center
Under the Create Paychecks table, select the payroll schedule you want to update.
From the Payroll Schedules ▼ dropdown menu, select Edit Schedule.
Make the necessary updates in the Edit Payroll Schedule window.
Select OK.
Deactivate or delete a payroll schedule
Instead of deleting a payroll schedule, you can make it inactive. This way, you could always make it active again if you needed to do so without setting up a new payroll schedule. To deactivate a pay schedule:
Go to Employees, then select Employee Center.
Under the Create Paychecks table, select the payroll schedule you want to update.
From the Payroll Schedules dropdown, select Edit Schedule.
Mark Schedule is inactive, then select OK.
If you decide you want to completely delete a payroll, there are two steps:
Step 1: Remove any employees who are on the payroll schedule you want to delete
Go to Employees, then select Payroll Center.
Double-click the employee's name.
Go to the Payroll Info tab.
Make sure the schedule in Payroll Schedule field isn't the one you need to delete. If it is, select another payroll schedule for the employee or clear the field.
Follow these steps to check the payroll schedule for all your employees.
Step 2: Delete the payroll schedule
Go to Employees, then select Payroll Center.
Go to the Pay Employees tab.
Under the Create Paychecks table, select the payroll schedule that you want to delete.
From the Payroll Schedules ▼ dropdown, select Delete Schedule. Note: If you get a prompt saying you can’t delete or make a payroll schedule inactive, you still have employees on it. Follow Step 1 to check all of your employees.
