Recording prior tax payments

Learn how to enter tax payments made for prior tax periods.

Do you need to reconcile your tax history? If you are new to our payroll products, you'll want to enter your prior payroll history, as well as any tax payments you paid outside the payroll system.

When dealing with penalties and interest paid to the tax agencies, you should not record these together with the tax due. It will result in overpayment. You should record these payments as an expense in your QuickBooks Online.

We'll show you how to record prior tax payments in QuickBooks Online Payroll.

Tax payments depends on if you chose to have us pay and file your federal and state payroll taxes for you or if you opted to pay and file them yourself. If you aren’t sure, check your automatic tax payments and form filing status first.

To record your tax payment

1. Go to Taxes, then Payroll Tax.
2. Select the Payments tab.
3. Review the payments listed and locate the tax you want to record a payment for.
4. If the payment is listed, choose the option Mark as paid then select Yes, mark paid. Note: This will be a non-posting transaction. It will not affect the bank register, but it will clear the taxes from showing due and record the deposits.

If the payment is not listed, continue with the steps below

1. Go to Taxes, then Payroll Tax.
2. Select Resources.
3. Select Record tax payments, then Add Payment.
   Note: This will be a non-posting transaction. It will not affect the bank register, but it will clear the taxes from showing due and record the deposits.
4. Select a Tax Type, then enter the following:
   • Period Start Date and Period End Date - the period that the taxes were accrued
   • Payment Date
   • Check Number (optional)
   • Notes (optional)
   • Tax Item Amounts
5. Select OK.

If you need to edit a prior payment

1. Go to Taxes, then Payroll Tax
2. Select Payment history.
3. Change the Date Range to find the tax payment you want to edit.
4. Select Edit to modify the tax payment, then select OK.