Setting Up the General Ledger and Exporting Payroll Journal Entries

Purpose

UZIO has no accounting module, but it produces the general ledger entries your accounting platform needs after each payroll: a real-time sync to QuickBooks Online, an .IIF file for QuickBooks Desktop or Enterprise, a .CSV file for Xero, and an Excel General Ledger report for any other platform. This article covers the one-time setup (file structure and chart-of-accounts mapping), how to get the entries after each payroll, what the file leaves out, and how to fix an unbalanced ledger.

Who can do this: Any user whose role includes the Payroll permission. This is usually the Employer Admin, but other admin roles can be granted the same access. Most companies do the mapping together with their bookkeeper.

Prerequisites

• Your chart of accounts from your accounting platform. Account numbers must match exactly.
• A working knowledge of debits and credits. See Understanding Payroll Accounting.
• If you use QuickBooks Online, connect it first; the connection and its own mapping screens are covered in Connecting QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online: Mapping Your Chart of Accounts. This article covers the file-based General Ledger used for QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, and other platforms.

Setup: two steps

Open the General Ledger page in the Payroll module.

Step 1: File Setup

Step 2: Chart of Accounts mapping

Click Add Account once per account and map it to payroll components.

Pay type specifics:

• Earnings, Deductions, Contributions show a grid of your company items. Select one or more to map to the account. Mapping ALL items means items you add later are picked up automatically. Mapping items individually means every new item must be mapped by hand or it is missing from the file.
• Taxes asks for a Tax Type: Federal or State. Federal shows a grid of federal taxes. State shows a multi-select of your states, then that state's tax categories (for example, EIT and LST in Pennsylvania). Mapping a category maps all taxes in it. Only taxes actually processed in payroll land in the file, so mapping unused categories is harmless.
• Contractor pay types (Contractor 1099 Earnings, Contractor Check Net Pay, Contractor Direct Deposit Net Pay) ignore grouping. The form explains: "This pay type is specific to contractors, hence grouping is not applicable on this account as system does not allow grouping of contractors."
• The same account number can be used more than once as long as the combination of account type, number, pay type (and tax type and state) is unique. You cannot create two accounts for the same pay type; map several items to one account instead.
• Federal and state taxes cannot be mapped to the same account. Two separate accounts may share a number.

Deleting an account. The confirmation reads: "If you proceed further, the account will be deleted permanently and will not be considered in future general ledger files." Files already downloaded are unaffected.

Getting the entries after each payroll

File-based platforms. After a payroll is approved, generate the General Ledger report from Payroll Reports as an .IIF (QuickBooks Desktop or Enterprise), a .CSV (Xero), or the Excel report, which has a General Ledger - Summary sheet and a General Ledger - Details sheet. One file can cover several payrolls, including contractor payrolls if you mapped the contractor pay types.

QuickBooks Online. No file is needed. Approving a payroll creates a journal entry in QBO automatically (or on demand, depending on the sync mode you chose). A Resync to QuickBooks Online button on the payroll's summary screen re-sends the entry, for example after fixing a mapping error. Every resync creates a new journal entry, so reverse the superseded one in QBO. Details, error messages, and the sync-status column in Payroll History: QuickBooks Online: Syncing Payrolls and Troubleshooting.

What the file does not contain

• Workers' compensation premiums. UZIO does not calculate them in payroll. Record them from the Workers' Compensation Wages Report. See Setting Up Workers' Compensation Codes.
• Cash payments made outside UZIO Payroll.
• Contractor payments unless you mapped the three contractor pay types.

Keeping the ledger in step with payroll changes

• A new earning, deduction, or contribution. Unless you mapped ALL items for that pay type, come back here and map the new item before the next file. Otherwise the file is short and out of balance. See Setting Up Company Level Earnings and Setting Up Company Level Deductions.
• A new state. Map the new state's tax categories under the Taxes pay type.
• A voided payroll. UZIO creates a reversing Void payroll. With QuickBooks Online connected, a reversing journal entry syncs automatically. For file-based platforms, include the Void payroll when you generate the file for that period, and correct the expense side manually as the void confirmation instructs. See Reviewing Past Payrolls and Requesting a Void (Payroll History).

Troubleshooting: unbalanced GL

An unbalanced file almost always means a mapping problem:

1. A component processed in payroll is not mapped to any account.
2. A component is mapped to a debit account but has no matching credit, or the reverse.
3. A component is mapped to two debit or two credit accounts and double-counted.
4. You group by Department or Division and some employees have no department or division assigned.

Related articles

• Understanding Payroll Accounting
• Connecting QuickBooks Online
• QuickBooks Online: Mapping Your Chart of Accounts
• QuickBooks Online: Syncing Payrolls and Troubleshooting
• Understanding the UZIO Tax Payment Process
• Reviewing Past Payrolls and Requesting a Void (Payroll History): QBO sync status column, and what a void does to the ledger