QuickBooks 2009: The Missing Manual

Chapter 14. Doing Payroll

If you decide to outsource the headaches of payroll to a payroll service company, as many businesses do, you can skip this chapter—except for the first section, which starts on Adding Payroll Transactions from an Outside Service. With outsourced payroll, the only thing you have to do in QuickBooks payroll-wise is add a couple of transactions for each payroll, allocate salaries and wages, payroll taxes, and any other payroll expenses to the accounts in your chart of accounts. For a small payroll, outside services are a pretty good deal. The payroll service takes care of all the grunt work for the equivalent of the cost of a few hours of your time. Even with the highest level QuickBooks Payroll Service, you have to devote some time and brain power to payroll.

If you want to process payroll within QuickBooks, then you first have to sign up for one of the payroll services that Intuit offers. To keep expenses low, you can choose a bare-bones service that provides only updated tax tables. At the other end of the spectrum, you can opt for QuickBooks’ full-service payroll. Or you can compromise somewhere in the middle.

After you choose a level of QuickBooks payroll service, your next task is to set up everything the program needs to calculate payroll amounts. You can walk through each step on your own or use a wizard. Either way, the Payroll Setup wizard keeps track of what you’ve done and what you still have to do. This chapter takes you through every payroll step ...