MY CARTQuickBooks 2014 Training: How to Use QuickBooks Payroll- Creating Payroll Schedules (pt 3)
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This post is part 3 of a QuickBooks Payroll training series.
Creating Payroll Schedules
In QuickBooks, you will most often create employee paychecks by using the scheduled payroll feature. However, if needed, you can also print unscheduled employee paychecks as well as termination paychecks.
Before you start a scheduled payroll, however, you must first create at least one payroll schedule. You can create and modify payroll schedules by selecting “Employees| Add or Edit Payroll Schedules” from the Menu Bar to open the “Payroll Schedule List.” To create a new payroll schedule, click the “Payroll Schedule” button and then choose the “New” command.
In the “New Payroll Schedule” window that appears, enter a name for the payroll schedule into the “What do you want to name this payroll schedule?” field. Use the next field’s drop-down to select the frequency with which this payroll will recur. After that, use the “What is the pay period end date?” calendar selector to select the final date in the pay period. Then use the “What date should appear on paychecks for this pay period?” calendar selector to select the paycheck date for the payroll. If you chose to create a semimonthly or monthly payroll, you may also need to answer a few more date-related questions in this screen. Once you have entered the payroll schedule information, click the “OK” button. You can then follow the onscreen prompts to assign employees with the same payroll frequency to the selected payroll schedule.
Creating Scheduled Paychecks
You can create and print employee paychecks for a scheduled payroll by either selecting “Employees| Pay Employees| Scheduled Payroll” from the Menu Bar or by clicking the “Pay Employees” button in the Home page to open the “Employee Center: Payroll Center” window.
In “Pay Employees” section of the window, select the name of the payroll schedule to pay from the listing shown. Then click the “Start Scheduled Payroll…” button to open the “Enter Payroll Information” window where you will see the employees assigned to the selected payroll schedule. All employees that you want to pay on this schedule should appear here with a checkmark next to their names. You then need to check to ensure that the data shown in the “Payroll Information” section is correct. Also review the hours worked and amounts shown for each employee. If you need to make changes to a paycheck, click the hyperlinked name of the employee within this list whose paycheck you wish to inspect to open their paycheck within a “Preview Paycheck” window where you can edit the informationand then click the “Save & Close” button to finish. After reviewing the payroll information for accuracy, click the “Continue” button to continue paying the employees.
Next, review the summary information in the “Review and Create Paychecks” window. In the “Paycheck Options” section, you can select the option button for “Print paychecks from QuickBooks” to create the paychecks and print them. If you are recording paychecks that have already been created, you can select the “Assign check numbers to handwritten checks” option button and then enter the first check number into the “First Check Number” field. You can then click the “Create Paychecks” button to create the selected paychecks for the scheduled payroll. You can then use the “Confirmation and Next Steps” window that appears to finish the payroll. Within this window you can click the “Print Paychecks” button to print the paychecks that you just created if you chose to print paychecks in QuickBooks. You can click the “Print Pay Stubs” button to print paystubs for the checks, if needed. When you are done, click the “Close” button.
