Hi EKS-NCC,

Thank you for joining the conversation. I'll provide additional details about how paychecks are posted. 

Paychecks are categorically expenses, so they should be reported in your expense account, particularly the Payroll Expense account. This is not doubling your expenses. QuickBooks is just doing the double-entry bookkeeping.

Please note that a single paycheck can affect many accounts because the amounts are divided into contributions, taxes, different types of wages, SS, Maxicare, etc. Each of these portions has a corresponding category in your Chart of Accounts. So these portions are posted into those categories during the pay run. That's how QuickBooks records the double-entry bookkeeping in the background, which is common practice in accounting. I recommend consulting an accountant about this matter. They are more capable of explaining the accounting side of transactions.

During payroll also, only the net pay amount will be posted or taken out from the bank account. But eventually, when you pay the taxes to your tax agency, those remaining amounts for tax payments will also be taken out from your bank account.

You can also reach out to our QBO Payroll Support so you have a screen-sharing session, and they can explain the affected categories of a paycheck while you're looking on the same page. It's much easier that way.

If you have other questions in mind, feel free to go back to this thread.