When you work for an accounting firm that manages payroll for multiple clients, you understand the importance of efficiency and accuracy in payroll processing. QuickBooks Online Payroll has added several new features to improve on both. These new features also work well with QuickBooks Online, making the family of connected QuickBooks products a more complete solution for your firm and your clients' needs.
Effective dating
Save time in planning and setting pay changes and compensation updates with no outside solutions or manual reminders. Effective dating allows you to schedule changes to employee compensation, including base pay and additional pay types, to take effect in a future pay period. For one-off pay type assignments, you can add start and end dates, ensuring that the pay type is automatically unassigned from the employee when the period ends.
Enhanced employee compensation management
Help ensure bookkeeping accuracy with the ability to view account mapping for each pay type. You now have the flexibility to mix salary and hourly compensation types within a payroll run for an employee, making it easier to manage diverse payroll needs.
Paycheck corrections in closed quarters
Mistakes happen, but correcting them just got easier. With paycheck corrections, you can now make adjustments in both open and closed quarters. This includes editing, voiding, and recording past paycheck transactions. For customers on QuickBooks Payroll Premium and Elite plans, our team will work directly with tax agencies to amend tax filings and process any additional taxes due, reducing manual work and customer support calls.**
Employee cost rate calculator
Quickly determine an hourly employee's cost rate with our built-in calculator, available in QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Advanced. This feature helps you factor in costs for each employee and project without needing external solutions or time-consuming manual steps. With enhanced visibility on employee cost rates, you can analyze profitability, adjust project resourcing, and create more accurate project budgets.
Flag mistakes before running payroll with anomaly detection
QuickBooks Online Payroll now has the help of AI-powered anomaly detection to flag payroll mistakes before payroll is run. This feature helps identify errors in hours-worked data for regular, hourly pay types so mistakes can be detected and resolved in real time—keeping clients’ employees happy and avoiding lost time and money on inaccurate payments. You can turn it off anytime as well.
Payroll Agent
Payroll Agent will automate the pre-payroll workflow based on your client’s QuickBooks Online Payroll data and prepare a draft run for your expert review. This eliminates hours of manual data entry and follow-ups, allowing you to focus on a fast, accurate final approval instead of tedious prep work. Learn more from our In the Know series.
Here are more QuickBooks Online Payroll innovations released in the past year:
Payroll cost allocation*
Coming this fall, QuickBooks Online Payroll will allow for more precise payroll cost allocation. You can assign multiple classes to a single pay type, enabling a deeper analysis of profit and loss across different business areas. This feature simplifies the process of splitting payroll costs for hourly and non-hourly employees into multiple classes without the need for additional journal entries. The system automatically calculates payroll using data from QuickBooks Time, giving you and your clients useful information to make better business decisions.
Paycheck corrections**
Mistakes happen, but QuickBooks Online Payroll now offers a solution that minimizes their impact. With the new paycheck correction feature, you can amend errors even after payroll has been processed. This flexibility lets you manage and correct paychecks not recorded in the current quarter. This makes sure your payments are accurate and gives you more control over payroll management.
Here is an In the Know episode on paycheck corrections.
Direct deposit transaction matching
QuickBooks Online Payroll paychecks paid with direct deposit will be matched to bank transactions, eliminating the task to match the transactions yourself.
With this update, each paycheck paid by direct deposit will be auto matched to a bank debit in Bank transactions. No more manually matching payroll transactions to paychecks one by one, but be sure to review the proposed categorization.
You will now see notifications of automatic matches, and you can always turn off this setting if you prefer to match manually. All transactions will appear as “Intuit,” but detailed descriptions will still mention “Payroll.”
Assign payroll items to multiple employees at once
QuickBooks Online Payroll now allows you to quickly create and assign payroll items to multiple employees.
Instead of making updates to employee information from their individual profiles, you can select Edit Payroll Items on the Employees tab to do more in fewer steps:
See all pay types, deductions, and contributions assigned to employees.
See all employees assigned to each pay item.
Assign multiple employees to each pay item in a simple workflow.
Filter employees by work location, employment status, and employee type.
Edit multiple employees’ assignment details simultaneously.
Watch this In the Know video about making bulk edits to pay items.
Payroll column reordering
You can now rearrange the order of your payroll columns when running payroll. This makes reviewing and entering hours easier because you can now customize the column order of your table to match your needs. Pay method is also listed in a column, which makes it easier to check how you are paying employees—direct deposit or paper check—and change between them. Available from Aug. 19.
Digital I-9 employment verification
The process of verifying U.S. employment eligibility has been streamlined, thanks to the digital I-9 feature in QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium and Elite. Employees can complete their part of the I-9 when they start working in QuickBooks Workforce by giving their ID documents on their first day. Clients can finish the verification within three days. This digital solution not only simplifies compliance, but also securely stores the completed forms in the employees’ profile.
Organizational charts and directories
Business owners and their accountants need to know how their companies work. QuickBooks Online Payroll now has a simple way to see and manage company charts and directories. Clients can create and adjust visual diagrams or lists showing reporting structures and relationships within the company.
QuickBooks Online Payroll eligible for split billing
Accountants can now change the billing for client subscriptions to split the payments by product. For example, they can give the billing for QuickBooks Online Payroll to the client, while the firm pays for QuickBooks Online. Or your firm can cover subscription fees and you can have your client cover any variable fees, such as per-employee fees or transaction fees. This enhancement provides accountants with greater control over their billing practices. Learn more about split billing
Migrating to QuickBooks Online Payroll
Moving from QuickBooks Desktop Payroll to QuickBooks Online Payroll makes your payroll process easier. It also has many benefits that can improve your accounting or bookkeeping practice. Here are more details on improvements to the migration process.
Improved migration to QuickBooks Online Payroll
QuickBooks has revamped its migration process, making it easier than ever to move your company's payroll data online. The new migration tools are designed to facilitate a smooth transition. This flexibility ensures that you can bring all your essential data into QuickBooks Online Payroll without hassle, maintaining continuity and accuracy. These tools are designed to support your firm's specific migration strategy, helping you prepare and move desktop files seamlessly. Coming fall 2024, comprehensive conversion checklists will be provided to ensure that no critical data is overlooked during the transition.
Access to Help
One of the key advantages of moving to QuickBooks Online Payroll is in-product help. QuickBooks Online Payroll offers help content right within the software. This means faster answers to your questions, allowing you to maintain focus and efficiency. Whether you're troubleshooting an issue or need guidance on a specific feature, help is just a few clicks away, ensuring minimal disruption to your workflow.
The value of integrating Payroll with QuickBooks Online
Integrating QuickBooks Online Payroll with QuickBooks Online provides numerous benefits that can elevate your accounting firm’s services:
Real-time data syncing: Seamless integration ensures that payroll and timesheet data are always up-to-date, allowing for accurate recordkeeping and less time spent on data entry.
Mobile accessibility: The QuickBooks Workforce mobile app empowers your clients' employees to manage their time and access important payroll documents from anywhere, which enhances their overall experience and satisfaction.
Self-service access: Employees can access their pay stubs, W-2s, and other payroll-related documents online, reducing the administrative burden on your clients and your firm.
Increased advisory opportunities: Automation of routine payroll tasks frees up your time, allowing you to focus on providing strategic, high-value advisory services to your clients.
Enhanced profitability insights: Customizable job costing and real-time payroll reports provide critical business insights, helping your clients manage their finances more effectively and potentially increasing your firm’s billable time.
By leveraging these new features and the integration of QuickBooks Online Payroll with QuickBooks Online, your firm can enhance its payroll processing capabilities and offer more strategic value to your clients. Embrace these tools to make your payroll services a cornerstone of your client relationships and business growth.
For more information on QuickBooks Payroll or to set up a meeting with one of Intuit’s Accountant team members, reach out here.