Learn how to add your salaried employees’ sick pay or vacation pay hours in QuickBooks Online Payroll and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll.
If it’s time to run payroll and you have a salaried employee who took a sick or vacation leave, don’t worry. You can add sick or vacation pay hours before you process your payroll. We’ll automatically recalculate your employee’s total pay to keep everything accurate.
Step 1: Set up a time off policy
If you haven’t already, set up your company to track time off in payroll.
Step 2: Pay sick pay or vacation pay on paychecks
You can add sick or vacation time to your regular payroll or create a separate paycheck.
Add sick or vacation time to regular paychecks
QuickBooks Online Payroll
- Go to Payroll, then Employees.
- Select Run payroll.
- Select your desired payroll schedule, then Continue.
- Select the employees you need to pay.
- Find your salaried employee and add their sick pay or vacation pay hours.
- Select Preview payroll.
- Review the payroll details. If everything looks good, select Submit payroll.
QuickBooks Desktop Payroll
- Go to Employees, then select Pay Employees.
- Select Scheduled Payroll or Unscheduled Payroll.
- Scheduled Payroll: Select the appropriate schedule in the Create Paychecks section, then select Start Scheduled Payroll.
- Unscheduled Payroll: Verify the pay period end date, and the check date, then select the employees you’d have to run payroll for.
- Select Open Paycheck Detail.
- Find your salaried employee and enter the hours (the employee has worked for the pay period) to the salary item.
- Enter the sick or vacation pay item you’ve created in Step 1, then enter the hours.
- Select Save & Next to go to the next employee, or select Save & Close to go back to the Enter Payroll Information window.
- Select Continue, then Create Paychecks.
Create a sick or vacation pay paycheck only
QuickBooks Online Payroll
- Go to Payroll, then Employees.
- Select Run payroll.
- Select your desired payroll schedule, then Continue.
- Select the salary amount of the employee you want to pay. Then, select Skip salary this time only and Apply.
- Add their sick pay or vacation pay hours.
- In the Total Pay column, select Edit next to your employee’s total pay amount.
- Select Employee deductions and enter "0" for all types of deductions.
- Select Preview payroll. If everything looks good, select Submit payroll.
QuickBooks Desktop Payroll
- Go to Employees, then select Pay Employees.
- Select Unscheduled Payroll.
- Verify the pay period end date, and the check date, then select the salaried employee you’d have to run payroll for.
- Select Open Paycheck Detail.
- Remove the earning items and the deduction items under Other Payroll items (if there’s any).
- Enter the sick or vacation pay item you’ve created in Step 1. Then enter the sick or vacation hours.
- Select Save & Close to go back to the Enter Payroll Information window.
- Select Continue, then Create Paychecks.
