General Ledger Report Setup (Download the guide for screenshots)
Contents
What is a General Ledger Report?. 2
Debit vs. Credit 2
Where To Start (What To Ask Your Client For) 3
General Ledger Setup/Mapping. 4
Formats. 4
Codes. 4
Settings (Overrides) 5
GL Account # Descriptions. 8
Troubleshooting Incorrectly Coded (Or Suspense) Items. 10
Recalculate, Recalculate, Recalculate! 10
Check Detailed GL Report 10
Check GL Formats. 10
Check GL Settings. 11
Check GL Codes. 12
Troubleshooting Cost Center Issues. 13
Labor Distribution Profiles Not Working. 13
Default vs. Distributed Cost Center Trees. 14
How To Fix Cost Center Coding If Recalculating Doesn’t Work. 16
Troubleshooting Other Stuff 16
GL Report Doesn’t Balance. 16
Debits Showing Up As Credits (Or Credits Showing Up As Debits) 17
GL Account # Descriptions Not Working. 18
Things You May Have Trouble With. 18
Paid Time Off Balance Liabilities. 18
Accrual Accounting. 19
QuickBooks IIF Downloads. 20
Things To Know.. 20
Building IIF Report 20
Delivering the IIF Report 22
What is a General Ledger Report?
A general ledger is a company’s main accounting record. As each employer pays money to their employees for their services, they need a way of allocating this money into their accounting record, and that’s where we step in. We are not accountants here at PayNorthwest, but it is important for us to understand the basics of what is on a general ledger report to make it easier for your client to include their payroll wages, taxes, etc. into their accounting records.
Debit vs. Credit
You may have heard things called debits or credits before now, or perhaps called them expenses or liabilities. This is not accounting 101 and we are not CPA’s, so without going into complicated specifics, you really just need to know the following:
- Debit (AKA Expense) is the cost of doing business. This would include the things that the employer pays for in order to keep employees, like wages, taxes, or benefits.
- Credit (AKA Liability) is the ‘debt’ that the employer incurs to balance the expenses. Think of this as just the other side of your expenses. These can also be thought of as amounts that are owed to someone else.
We’ll start with an example of what a basic report may look like:
This report shows a $100 gross bonus amount. The $100 is the gross pay, which the employer reduced by taxes and a 401k amount, and then gave the remaining money to the employee as their net pay.
In debit vs. credit terms, the employer’s expense according to this report, is the $100 gross. Then, they withheld the federal income, social security, and Medicare taxes and paid them to the IRS. They also withheld 401k and paid it to their 401k provider, and then the net pay is paid to the employee. All of these amounts must be recorded in an employer’s financial statement.
This report, however, doesn’t actually include all the payroll costs of processing this bonus check. Social security and Medicare, for example, will always require an employer match. They might also have an employer benefit that they match contributions into the employee’s 401k. With these added items, this general ledger report grows.
These employer amounts are placed on both the debit and the credit side of the general ledger report. The debit is where the client records the cost (or expense) of doing business, and the credits are the amounts (or liabilities) that are owed to someone else (social security/Medicare are paid to the IRS, 401k is paid to the 401k provider).
This is a very simple example and you will likely be building much more complicated GL reports. Here are some basic things to remember:
- Your client may call them expenses and liabilities rather than debits and credits. Know that debits are the expenses and credits are the liabilities.
- Your debits and credits should always balance out to the same number.
- If your client is department or job costing, its likely they will want their expenses (debits) also allocated between departments. Remember that the expense/debits show the cost of doing business, to which they probably want to charge back to those jobs/departments, while the liability/credits are really just the offset amounts that are due to other agencies (IRS, 401k, etc.). They may or may not care to allocate these amounts that are paid to other agencies into separate department codes, rather than just one bank transaction that is pulled from their account.
Where To Start (What To Ask Your Client For)
When it’s time to start building a new GL report for your client, the basic things you need will be:
- Chart of accounts – this is a list of what the GL account numbers are, along with descriptions
- Sample of previous general ledger report – this should help you see what the report needs to look like (for the actual column headings, ordering, etc.)
- Source documentation, or a payroll register report that shows the detailed payroll information that is included in the sample general ledger report
While the second two items in this list are technically optional, if you can get a sample report and the details behind how it was created, it will make mapping the earnings/taxes/benefits easier when you have all the details.
The person you are discussing the GL report with may be an accountant and not the payroll processor, so they may only understand what you mean by chart of accounts. If that’s the case, that’s okay. Have the client send you what they can, and at least give you a place to start. After you’ve mapped all that you can, pull all the details into one GL report in the system, and forward that excel file to your contact. Ask them to give you the missing data, or to let you know any errors directly on that spreadsheet. At that point, it will make more sense to that person what you need, and you’ll also get some assistance with your mapping once you have the details back from them in excel.
General Ledger Setup/Mapping
Formats
The format of the general ledger account number is very important. This is the structure of how the client’s account numbers are built. These may also be called ‘segments’ of the account number. The format of the account number is where to start whether you are building this mapping from scratch or troubleshooting an issue. Find a client’s general ledger account format via Company Settings > Payroll Setup > General Ledger > Settings.
This example has two different formats. These process sequentially, so you can assume that every single line of your mapping will use the first line, unless you see ‘switch format’ lines below in the settings area of the report.
The first line of this example says that the general ledger mapping will use the GL/GL offset codes from the codes section of this setup. See the section below for further details.
The second line of this example says that there are three separate segments of this GL account number. The first segment comes from the GL/GL offset codes area (below), then the department GL code, then a constant. Your client will most likely give you the format, or you may be able to decipher it based on the information they gave your from their source documents. Setting up formats with as many details as possible will keep maintaining this easier in the future.
You might be asking yourself, why would a client want more than one GL format?
If you remember above, when we talk about the differences between debits and credits, there will be many clients that may want all their debits to be allocated to different GL codes based on departments, while the credits may need to be grouped into one specific code. If your client would like different types of formatting like this, and looking at the above screen shot, this client may want all their credits to stay in format #1, and then have you switch all the debits to format #2. For more details on how to switch formats, see the Settings section below.
Codes
GL Codes are kept under Company Settings > Payroll Setup > General Ledger > Codes. This is a report that shows all earnings, deductions, taxes, and cost centers in a grid like format. Certain fields will be greyed out when you click in them, and those are fields that you are unable to fill in.
Here is a list of all the fields that can potentially have codes:
- Earnings will always have primary debits
- Employee withheld deductions will always have a primary credit
- Deductions will also have ER Debits and ER credits if it has employer portions/benefits tied to it (i.e. medical, dental, or 401k)
- Taxes that are withheld from employees will have primary credits (i.e. federal/state income taxes)
- Taxes that are paid solely by the employer will only have ER debits and ER credits (i.e. FUTA or SUTA taxes)
- Taxes that are withheld from the employees AND the employer pays a portion will have primary credits and ER debits/credits (i.e. FICA or Medicare)
- Cost Centers will have the Cost Center/Job column filled in
Other helpful tips to know when entering in codes
- You can filter using the configured column to filter a list of only configured, or not yet configured items.
- You can also use the object type and name columns to filter to specific items for mapping.
- GL Codes can also be imported (download the sample template under Company Settings > Imports > Overview).
- If your GL codes are following a pattern, you may be able to make this easier using formats. See the formats section above for further details.
- If this client is a multi-EIN client it’s imperative that you check all the separate EIN’s for the same data. All the information on this GL Codes area is segregated by EIN and must be filled out for each one.
Settings (Overrides)
GL Settings are also called overrides because they override all the other aspects of your GL mapping (formats and codes). They can be used to override GL codes, to switch earning/tax/deduction codes between different format mappings, or to even specify an account number rather than use any other format or code method.
When setting up a new override, it is important to know how to correctly filter to the earning/tax/deduction code you would like to build this override for.
Notice the difference between these two overrides. The NAME and DESCRIPTION are for informational purposes only, so the term ‘is earning’ on the first screen shot means any earning processed in payroll. The second screen shot shows is earning AND is department ‘admin’ so that any earning coded to admin will be included in this filter.
Now, let’s say that this client told you to code all admin earnings to one place, but later told you to code all sick earnings to another code (no matter what department they are worked in).
As the first step says any earning and the second image shows sick earnings, these two items contradict each other (SICK is an EARNING). In order to fix this, we need to update our first admin earnings override as follows:
This now says that any earning and admin department and is NOT sick, so that it no longer contradicts the sick earnings override.
Once you’ve setup your filters, you will build the assignments on the right side of the screen:
- Specific GL Account # - allows you to override the account number to whatever you type in, ignoring all other formats or GL/GL offset code mapping
- Modify Mapping – allows you to modify the mapping of one of the positions of your format. For example, if you wanted to modify the cost center code for one type of earning only, you can do that by modifying mapping.
- Suppress – this will suppress everything on this override from your GL completely. Be very careful of doing this. It is important that if you suppress an items debit you also suppress its matching credit so that the GL report will stay in balance. For example:
- Switch Format – allows you to change which format this override should apply too. You will only see this option if you have more than one format.
Each override also has a line fill in field to allow you to order this appropriately. These items do happen sequentially, and as long as you are very careful with creating contradictions, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about the line order you choose. If you have a line that looks correct but doesn’t seem to be working when you recalculate your GL, try changing the line number to 999 to see if that fixes your problem, and if it does, you have a contradiction somewhere else in your settings. I also like to use the lines for easy filtering, so perhaps all my earnings are around 10 and all my taxes are in the 20s, or even grouping by department. Then your lines are another way to filter by setting to make updating this easier.
GL Account # Descriptions
GL Account # Descriptions are completely optional, so you may never need to use these. If your client needs specific memo options or notations on certain GL account entries, this is where you will set them up. When creating your GL report for your client, there are entry types and descriptions built in by the system. You can see them as long as you have these columns built into your report:
These columns, however, may look something like this:
The GL Account # descriptions gives you an area to use the client’s descriptions based on their account number.
These descriptions can be setup under Company Settings > Payroll Setup > General Ledger > Account Descriptions. When adding a new one, you will just type the account number in and the description the client needs in the description field.
Keep in mind that the GL account number must match exactly from how it’s mapped into the GL account number field. So, if your GL account number is 1000-123456-000 where 1000 is the ‘code’, the 123456 is the ‘department’, and 000 is the ‘activity’ (or another cost center), then the GL account # description would need to show:
And if this same description could tie to any department that starts with 1000, you’re going to enter a lot of lines (a new line for every department and activity combination that could possibly use this code). Thankfully, GL account # descriptions are importable, so look for the template under Company Settings > Imports > Overview.
Troubleshooting Incorrectly Coded (Or Suspense) Items
Recalculate, Recalculate, Recalculate!
If your client comes to you with any sort of GL issue, try recalculating your general ledger first thing. This can be done by going to the payroll (Manage Payroll > Manage Payrolls > View All Payrolls) using the checkbox on the pay period you’re working with, and using the recalculate GL option under the utilities button on the top right of the screen.
Sometimes this will magically fix whatever strange GL report issue that was happening and sometimes it won’t. Also keep in mind that it is very important to recalculate your GL anytime you make a change if you wish to see that change on a GL report. The GL on an open payroll creates as soon as PST are initiated, so if the payroll has already been started, you may need to recalculate that GL report as well.
Check Detailed GL Report
Go to your general ledger report, filter to the incorrectly coded (or suspense) account, and start pulling in more columns to your report to see more details. Start with these ones:
Also include any other cost center tress that you may be using for GL purposes. If you have filtered to your specific issue, and you see a recurring situation in one of these columns, it may help you figure out what needs to be changed. For example, if all your lines have to do with a specific earning type, we know to look at that specific earning type on the settings and code screens. Look for blanks in your cost center trees. Blanks in your cost center tree could mean you’re employee is not being allocated correctly (or needs a default setup), could mean this tree is not distributing properly, or even the code is missing. See below Troubleshooting Cost Center Issues for more details on Cost Center specifics.
You can also pull in employee fields, like names or ID numbers, if this issue is specific to an employee rather than an earning, deduction, tax, or cost center.
Check GL Formats
At a minimum, you must have at least one GL format. GL formats can be found at the top of the GL settings screen (Company Settings > Payroll Setup > General Ledger > Settings). By default, you should see this format:
This format means that all earnings, deductions, and taxes on this GL are just using the GL/GL Offset codes in the codes area, or are being driving by other settings (lower on the same screen as your formats). Also keep in mind that if your GL format has more than one position, like this:
All of the positions must have data or the entire account will show us as a suspense item. In this example, the earning/deduction/tax must have both a GL/GL Offset code PLUS a department GL code. If it has a GL/GL Offset code, this could be a department issue. Your GL: Department column on your detailed report probably shows as a null figure, and be sure to check the below Troubleshooting Cost Center Issues section of this guide.
Check GL Settings
GL Settings are on the same screen as your GL formats, further down the screen. GL settings will always override any codes you may have setup in the GL codes area, which is why we check them before moving to the codes screens.
Look for any vague settings override lines. Do you have any lines that say something like ‘is earning’, ‘is deduction’, or ‘is tax’ without any other type of and/or items, or even a specific earning, deduciton or tax?
Notice the following setting override:
Even though this is named admin earnings, the filter says ‘is earning’ which means that every single line of your general ledger with an earning type is going to use this rule. Your admin earnings setting override would look closer to this:
Also check your line numbers. These drive the priority. If you have an item on your settings with is earning AND is department, but later on you have ‘specific earning = sick’ these two lines technically contradict each other. If you need a ‘specific earning = sick’ later on, try changing the above to ‘is earning AND is department AND is NOT sick’ so that it doesn’t have anything in common with your other override.
You want to make sure to check the settings before going into detail on your codes list, because settings override anything in the codes section of your general ledger mapping.
Check GL Codes
GL Codes are kept under Company Settings > Payroll Setup > General Ledger > Codes. This is a report that shows all earnings, deductions, taxes, and cost centers in a grid like format. First, filter to your incorrectly coded item and ensure that any field that you can fill in is filled in. For example:
The fields that need to be filled in will allow you to (they won’t be greyed out when you try to enter data), but here is a list of the details:
- Earnings will always have primary debits
- Employee withheld deductions will always have a primary credit
- Deductions will also have ER Debits and ER credits if it has employer portions/benefits tied to it (i.e. medical, dental, or 401k)
- Taxes that are only withheld from employees will have primary credits (I.e. federal/state income taxes)
- Taxes that are paid solely by the employer will only have ER debits and ER credits (i.e. FUTA or SUTA taxes)
- Taxes that are withheld from the employees AND the employer pays a portion will have primary credits and ER debits/credits (i.e. FICA or Medicare)
- Cost Centers will have the Cost Center/Job column filled in
Also, if this client is a multi-EIN client it’s imperative that you check all the separate EIN’s for the same data. All the information on this GL Codes area is segregated by EIN and must be filled out for each one.
Troubleshooting Cost Center Issues
If your general ledger report is using cost centers in any fashion, it’s important that these cost centers are setup to allocate correctly. You need to know how your client is determining these cost centers before knowing what the issue is. Here are some questions you should know the answers to:
- Should this employee have a default cost center?
- Should this employee have allocations for cost centers on their timesheet or pay statement?
- Are cost center allocations done using automated labor distribution profiles rather than manual pay period allocations?
- Is this cost center coded correctly? See Troubleshooting Incorrectly Coded Items
Labor Distribution Profiles Not Working
Labor distribution profiles give clients a way of allocating their employees’ wages to different cost centers using a percentage basis. These happen automatically during the payroll processing, and if an employee profile was updated after a payroll is processed, this edit won’t be seen on prior payroll processing. If you need it to show up, you can recalculate the LD profiles on the payroll, similar to how you recalculate the GL (see above Recalculate, Recalculate, Recalculate! section). Don’t forget that you must recalculate the LD and then recalculate the GL (in that order) to see the update.
Also keep in mind that an LD profile may also not be working properly due to overrides during payroll processing. So, if your client has been overriding an employee’s departments in a specific manner, their LD percentages will only allocate the non-overridden hours. This is also important if this client is using timekeeping. If the pay prep profile (the path between timesheets and payroll) is allowing all the departments to override on the pay statements during payroll processing, these overrides will also not be allocated by percentage, either. By going to the pay prep profile and clearing that cost center, then the LD profile will work on all hours that the cost center was cleared from. Inside the pay prep profile, look here:
Changing this drop down to ‘clear’ means that any department allocations on these timesheets will be completely ignored during payroll processing and the LD profile will drive 100% of allocations.
If your client wishes to have employees only allocate some of their time, mark this checkbox instead:
If you mark the ‘clear if empl. default’ checkbox, the system will still group all the rest of the department allocation overrides, but if the employee left certain ones unallocated (i.e. in their default department) the pay prep process will clear out these unallocated items and allow the LD profile to only work on those entries. Find out from your client which option they prefer.
Default vs. Distributed Cost Center Trees
Go to Company Settings > Global Setup > Company Setup > Payroll Tab and look for the following area:
In this screen shot, this client only has two cost center trees, one named Department and one named Jobs (HR), so you may see more lines in this section. The ability to distribution deductions, ER deductions, taxes, ER taxes, net pay, and different cost center trees is incredibly important and is required if you need any sort of special allocation in your general ledger or labor distribution reports. By default, when you add a new cost center, the system assumes you do not want to distribute. Your client more than likely wants to have distribution. When setting up a new client or cost center, you can probably almost always assume that all these check boxes need to be marked and every cost center tree should distribute to the last level (even though the system doesn’t default in this fashion).
If your cost center is not distributed or any of the top checkboxes are not marked when you processed a previous payroll, updating these fields will only update future payrolls. If you make an update to any of these fields and then recalculate your LD/GL, the LD and GL reports will NOT update. All of those changes will need to be populated manually (see the next section).
If the cost center is not distributed, you will only have access to employee DEFAULT cost center columns, not LD or GL columns. This means you would need to use the settings of ‘employee default cost center’ instead of GL cost center. Also keep in mind that any default column in the system uses CURRENT defaults, so that if an employee changed departments earlier this year, any historical reports run with a default column will include that employee’s current, new default, not the department that they were tied to previously.
When building settings, you would need to be very careful with these two filter options:
Default cost center 1 is the employees default when the GL was re-calculated (or, if never recalculated, the employees default at the time that the pay statements were initiated), while the GL cost center 1 would be their distributed cost center when payroll was being processed. In the above screen shot (on the payroll tab of company settings) if the cost center was not being distributed, the GL cost center would be a null and the defaults would need to be used.
How To Fix Cost Center Coding If Recalculating Doesn’t Work
Fixing cost center coding after payroll was finalized is not a quick or fun task. If your payroll wasn’t already finalized, see what you can do to prevent this from being required (if you can delete all the PST, and either reimport the hours or re-sync the time from the timesheets, you will save a lot of time).
This may not always be possible, though. If your payroll was already finalized and recalculating the LD/GL is not working, you do have the ability to manually adjust cost center distributions on those pay statements. First, find those pay statements that need to be edited. This can be done either by going to Manage Payroll > Manage Payrolls > View all Payrolls, finding the pay period, and going to the add/edit pay statements area of that payroll. Once you’ve found those pay statements, click on the little edit icon next to the pay statements line for one, or use the checkbox and the view selected button on the top right of the screen.
Once you’re looking at the edit screen, cliick on the utilities button and go to labor allocation. On this popup, you should see an edit distributions button. This will open up a screen that you can edit:
In this example, the job code field was a cost center that wasn’t allowed to distribute that we just turned on. If this employees holiday and salary pay just need a job coded added, we can fix this by choosing the correct job code on each line, saving, and moving to the next employee. Keep in mind that you may need to separate any of these lines by more than one (say 50% of holiday to Job code 1 and 50% to job code 2). You will need to click the add rows button, and manually split the hours and amounts for each holiday line. The system will not let you save your update unless all the earnings total out to what was originally processed. This only lets you change cost center distribution, so even if you end up with 2 lines to holiday instead of 1, the total hours and amount to holiday needs to remain the same (if they were paid $100 in holiday, then 50% = $50.00 to each of the two separate job codes).
Troubleshooting Other Stuff
GL Report Doesn’t Balance
If your GL report doesn’t balance (your total credits do not equal the same dollar amount as your total debits) first try recalculating your GL on the pay period. If that doesn’t work, go to your GL settings and look for any items that say ‘suppress’. If a portion of the GL is being suppressed from the report, it’s very important that both the debit and the opposite credit are being left out. For example, do not suppress the employer DR portion of a deduction code without also suppressing the employer CR portion of that same deduction.
Debits Showing Up As Credits (Or Credits Showing Up As Debits)
After reading above, we know that debits are expenses and credits are liabilities. You can also think of these as positive or negative numbers on the financials. If your client is questioning why something that would normally show up as a debit is on the credit side of the report (or a credit on the debit side) it is likely that during payroll processing there was either a void check or a negative dollar amount entered for an earning or deduction. At the top of your GL report screen (My Reports > Payroll > General Ledger Summary), there is a checkbox near your date selection checkbox.
If this checkbox is marked, then processing a void or a negative dollar amount moves those negative figures to the opposite side of the GL report table (debit to credit or credit to debit). If your client would rather see them as a negative figure, reducing the side they’re normally on, you only need to uncheck this box and save as their new default report.
In the following example, the client voided a $100 check for one employee. If we leave the box marked, the regular earning line will show as follows on their GL report:
When this $100 check was originally processed, it was showing as a $100 debit, so voiding it means we need to reduce this item by $100. Since the above checkbox is marked, rather than reducing the debit amount of the rest of the payroll checks, it is moving that negative number to the credit side of the GL report. If the client would rather see it reduced, unmarking the above box will change the GL report to look as follows:
After unmarking that checkbox, we now see that the $100 negative regular dollar amount is no longer showing as a credit, but is just reducing the rest of the debit amount that would normally process with the rest of this payroll. Making this change does not require recalculating anything, only saving the default or deliverable report without that checkbox marked.
GL Account # Descriptions Not Working
The most common reason that the GL account # descriptions do not work is because the GL account number on the setup doesn’t match exactly what the GL account number actually populates to during payroll processing.
For example, a client may use the following GL format:
The GL/GL offset code comes from the earning/tax/deduction in the codes area, and the department code comes from the GL field in the cost center the employee was working in. Let’s pretend that this GL format maps to the code 1000-123456. The confusion that you will have is, your client may look at this code and think of 1000 as the GL account and the department field after the dash as the department field, but this system looks at the full 1000-123456 as the full GL account number. When setting up the GL account # description, it would need to look like this:
Notice that in the second screen shot it shows the full GL/GL offset plus the department number, for the full GL account. GL account descriptions will need to be entered using the full output, and may mean that the client needs to setup another GL account description line for any possible GL/GL offset code plus department number that could potentially be possible. Thankfully, GL account # descriptions are importable, so look for the template under Company Settings > Imports > Overview.
Things You May Have Trouble With
There are certain things that this system does not have the ability to do with the general ledger report. The functionality may exist someday, but as of 2017 the following items cannot be added to or included in GL reports.
Paid Time Off Balance Liabilities
Because many employers pay their time off balances out to employees upon termination of employment, they need to make sure that they have the liability for those dollars included in their financials as money that may need to be paid out at any time. As the system does not have the ability to combine the time off balances report with the general ledger report, you will want to show the client other reports to pull this information. This may be just a regular balances report (My Employees > Accruals > Balances) with the balance liability column pulled in. This will give them the current number of hours balance multiplied by their base compensation rate.
They may also want a different type of report that, rather than showing a current balance, shows the amount of accruals that were earned during the last pay period. You can find this by looking at a history report (My Employees > Accruals > Accruals History). Be careful with the dates at the top of this report.
If, rather than looking at current balance or the current accrued amount, they instead what to see the difference of the amounts from time period to time period, they can use the Balance as of Date report (My Employees > Accruals > Balances as of Date). This report has date fields at the top of the screen. Keep in mind that they are based on updated to dates, so it’s important to always enter the date AFTER the one they are looking for. For example, if the client wants to see the difference between the balance as of July 31, 2017 and August 30th, 2017, they would want to enter the dates of 8/1/17 and 9/1/17. Pull in the balance liability columns (there is one for the first date, one for the second date, and even a difference column that shows the difference between the two employees). This report doesn’t have any ability to deliver based on a time period, so the client will need to run this report manually for any ongoing type of situation.
Accrual Accounting
Many clients may use the accrual accounting method of keeping their financials up to date. Think of this as the difference between a period end date and a check date. While the pay period for a company may fall from 12/16/16 – 12/31/16, if their check date falls on January 5th, 2017, then this check date falls on the 2017 form W2. Accrual Accounting uses the period end date, rather than the check date, so this payroll would fall on their December 2016 financial book.
The reason you need to be careful with this is that not every employer that wishes to use the last day of the month for their financial cut offs also has their pay periods cut off to match. For example, if this is a bi-weekly client, they will often need to estimate the amount for their financials for the last few or first few days of any given month.
This system does not report on this functionality perfectly, but does have some other types of reporting that can be used to help the client continue reporting in this manner.
- If this client is on timekeeping, they can run a Calculated Time Summary Report (My Reports > Time & Labor > Calculated Time > Calculated Time Summary) for any date range. Search for the columns that include the word ‘amount’ and the system will do rates times hours to give the total amount the employee would be paid over those dates chosen on the report. Keep in mind, however, that because this is a timekeeping report, it will only include time on the timesheets (your salaried employees may be left off). It also won’t include any taxes or benefits, so those may need to be estimated separately as well.
- If the next payroll has already been processed in the month following, there is an accrual multiplier at the top of the screen on the right:
This report, with a 1 / 1 multiplier will show you the general ledger report for the whole pay period. For an estimate, use this as the # of days to estimate for / # of days in the total pay period. For example, if this bi-weekly client has a 14 day pay period, but wants a general ledger report that shows 2 days of that pay period, the accrual multiplier should look like this:
Keep in mind that this is only taking a percentage of what was processed on that whole payroll, not the actual amount that was worked the first two days of that pay period. Also know that the report must be run again with the difference (12 / 14) for the first part of the following month’s financials.
QuickBooks IIF Downloads
Things To Know
QuickBooks is an accounting system that many clients use. An IIF file is a file type that is specific to QuickBooks. If your client needs an IIF to upload into their QuickBooks accounting system, there are some things you need to know:
- IIF is a file type that is only used by QB, and not even all versions of QB. The basic online version of QB, for example, doesn’t accept uploads at all. They either need the desktop version of QB, or the enterprise version of QB online.
- PayNorthwest does not troubleshoot or maintain QuickBooks. If you’re client needs assistance uploading an IIF file, they need to contact their accountant or QB. They may also be able to download a user guide online or search google for assistance.
- Before sending the client a sample IIF file, it is very important that you have all your general ledger mapping setup. Have them approve regular general ledger reports first. Also, incorrect general ledger account numbers will actually break the rest of their QuickBooks setup, so make sure to let your client know to back up the system before importing. If you want, you can also download the IIF from the system, save to your desktop, and open the IIF using notepad. Then, you can copy/paste all the text into an excel file so the client can see what it will look like.
Building IIF Report
QB IIF reports are kept under Company Settings > System Data Export > Data Export.
The majority of this report is pre-built using IIF specifications. There are some basic items that you will need to update. On the right hand side of the screen you will see the different column types:
The basic tab you will need to edit is the GL tab:
For an IIF file, you shouldn’t need to rename any labels, but you may need to update the information in the data/field area. For example, if you’re client needs their CLASS to show up in the GL report, make sure to change the type of this data field from Filler to whatever they need (CLASS in QB is most commonly the cost center, so you would want to choose that here).
Also remember that a general ledger report is a file to assist the client in reporting their payroll financials. If we are processing live employee checks or live vendor checks directly off of the client’s bank account, they will want the ability to have those net amounts and check numbers included in their QB file so that they can balance them once they are cashed by the employee or vendor. If this client has their live checks or vendor checks written off of a bank account that doesn’t belong to them (say, a PayNorthwest or KPS bank account), they will NOT need empl. check numbers or vendor check numbers in their QB file.
If they do need these check numbers, make sure to update the field on each of those offset tabs (it says CHANGE ME on it, so it should be easy to see) and to mark the matching checkbox under extra settings.
Extra settings are kept in a widget on the bottom left of the screen.
Only export empl. checks and vendor checks if they are written off of the client’s bank account. This will not give all the check details, but will have the payee name, net pay, and check number included in the file.
In the group by area, make sure to group by cost center or employee, but ONLY if you need that data to show up in, say, the CLASS line of the GL tab of this report. Grouping by any of these items is going to group for every single eligible line, and will make your report much bigger.
Once updating the fields as necessary, be sure to run this data export, save to your computer, open using notepad, then copy and paste all the data into excel. This gives your client a very clear image of what they would see in their QB file once this IIF was uploaded.
Delivering the IIF Report
Once your client has approved the IIF as it downloads from the system, you do have the ability to automatically deliver this to their email each pay period.
First, ensure that the date range you are running for this report is correct. More than likely, they’ll want the specific payroll currently being delivered.
Second, mark your deliver with payroll checkbox. This delivery does require a delivery policy that has data export type, so if you do not see anything in this delivery policy drop down, make sure you SAVE your report, then click on the link to bring you to your delivery policies. On this screen, add a new delivery policy using data exports as the type
On this new data exports type, you can send to your emailed reports delivery destination:
Of course, if you don’t have a delivery destination, you can click on this link to create one as well.