As we lead you through each step of quickly and effectively signing up, initiating, and handling payroll with QuickBooks Online, no prior payroll experience is essential. Making certain that your employees are paid on time every time is easier than ever with accounting software that includes payroll capabilities—QuickBooks Online is one of the most well-liked choices available. Millions of business owners use QuickBooks Online new features for bookkeeping, inventory management, and other tasks like payroll.
If you already use QuickBooks Online, you’re in luck. The beginning is quick and easy. Even though QuickBooks Payroll may be accessed right away from your QBO dashboard, you must register for the service.
No prior payroll expertise is necessary as we walk you through each step of quickly and efficiently signing up, starting, and managing payroll with QuickBooks Online.
With accounting software that includes payroll features, making sure that your employees are paid on time every time is simpler than ever. QuickBooks Online is one of the most well-liked options accessible. QuickBooks Online is used by millions of business owners for bookkeeping, inventory management, and other functions including payroll.
You’re in luck if you already use QuickBooks Online. Starting is quick and simple. Although you may immediately access QuickBooks Payroll from your QBO dashboard, you still need to sign up for the program.
WHAT YOU NEED TO RUN PAYROLL IN QUICKBOOKS ONLINE
Before you sit down and begin, you’ll need a few things to efficiently and accurately set up and run payroll using QuickBooks Online. Unsure of the necessity of each item on this list? Don’t worry; in the part that follows, we’ll go over exactly when to use each item.
- Personal data of employees
- Employee Pay Scales
- Employer Retentions
- W-4s for employees
- Forms for Direct Deposit Authorization and Voided Checks
- Information about Business Bank’s account login
- Informational Foundations for Your Business
If you take a few extra steps in addition to setting up payments through QuickBooks for each employee, payroll taxes can be appropriately calculated and paid. In addition to the previously indicated knowledge, the following information can assist you in achieving this above:
- Federal EIN
- State Account & Withholding Numbers
- Workman’s Comp Policy Information
HOW TO SET UP PAYROLL IN QUICKBOOKS ONLINE
Once you’ve gathered all the data you need, it’s time to set up your payroll. Depending on how many employees you have, this process may take some time; therefore, be sure to allow adequate time for proper data entry. Even if you’ve never set up payroll before, the good news is that it’s all really easy and clear, so it shouldn’t be a problem. These procedures must be finished for every employee, which can take some time.
SIGN UP FOR PAYROLL
To manage payroll through QuickBooks Online, you must sign up for QuickBooks Payroll. You can perform this right from your dashboard, and it is fairly simple.
From the menu on the left side of your screen, choose Payroll. From here, you can choose whether to set up payroll for independent contractors, workers’ compensation, or both. To finish this article, we’ll choose the Employees option.
The QuickBooks Payroll subscription plan you want to use must now be chosen. You have a variety of options to pick from or can choose your own to receive a plan recommendation from QuickBooks.
BASIC INFORMATION TO SET UP PAYROLL
Next, you will need to answer a few basic questions about your business to set up your payroll. These questions include:
- Have you paid employees in this fiscal year?
- When is your next payday?
- What is the primary work location?
ADD EMPLOYEES
Now that you have all that employee information, it’s time to manage payroll and pay the employees. Following your responses to business-related inquiries, you will be prompted to add personnel. Remember that you may have already added personnel for a variety of reasons. You may need to add additional information, though not all of it will need to be input again; more on this in the step that follows.
For the time being, our focus is on adding new employees that you haven’t yet added to QuickBooks Online. After selecting “Add Employee,” you must begin entering information. This includes:
Personal Information
You must include the legal name, hire date, and email address of each employee. Additionally, you have the choice to grant each employee access to their pay stubs and W-2s via QuickBooks Workforce.
Pay Schedule
How often is this employee paid? In this phase, you’ll create a payment schedule. Thankfully, there is a choice that enables you to use the same pay plan for each new employee you add, negating the need to create separate pay schedules for each one. If pay schedules differ, it goes without saying that you want to make sure you input the proper pay schedule for each employee.
Pay Rate
In this stage, you will input each employee’s wages. There are possibilities for hourly pay, salary, and commission-only compensation. If your employee is paid by the hour, you can decide to define the default days and hours worked each day if they put in the same number of hours each week. This makes it possible for you to run payroll without having to manually enter any hours for each paid month. This category might also include additional types of compensation, such as sick time, overpayment, or vacation time.
Deductions
This section is for adding any deductions for retirement plans, healthcare, wage garnishments, and loan repayments.
Withholdings
You must have the employee’s W-4 on hand for this section. To set up and calculate payroll taxes, just copy all the data from the W-4 directly to the form in QuickBooks.
Personal Details
In this section, you can add the employee’s date of birth.
Payment Details
How do you want to pay your employees? In this part, you have a choice. The choices are direct deposit, direct deposit to two accounts, direct deposit with balance as a check, and paper check. If you decide to pay the employee by direct deposit, you must have access to their account information. You can select the paper check option, which enables you to print and distribute your employees’ paychecks if you don’t have access to this data.
If you’re using a direct deposit to pay your employees, you must additionally fill out, sign, and date a direct deposit authorization form. Although it is not required, each employee must additionally provide a voided check to confirm the accuracy of the account information.
