What You Should Know about Accounting Payroll

What You Should Know about Accounting PayrollComputerized accounting payroll allows for the
The most important fact about accounting payrollprinting of hard copy journals as well as payroll
is that it involves financial statements and not filingledgers and calculates employee taxes to be
tax returns. Accounting payroll requires a detailedwithheld automatically with a few simple settings.
description of fringe benefits and payroll forPaying attention to detail is crucially important, as
employees which is necessary in the managementerrors can cause problems for the accounting of
of employee time. Employer paid benefits, payrollyour business. Keep individual files for your
taxes and costs as well as wages, salaries,employees with their time and payroll information
bonuses and commissions are only a few of thein them to make pulling information later an easy
items included on a business's balance sheet andtask. Be sure to keep a list of your employees
income statement. If you only have a couple ofand employee numbers handy if you choose to
employees, using a general ledger will be sufficientlist employees by their number in your accounting
to record payroll information, but if you havepayroll.
more than just 1 or 2 employees or expect toEmployee time sheets are also called payroll
have many more in the future, automating yoursource documents, and are required for audit use
payroll system can make accounting payroll simplewhen accounting payroll. These documents should
and efficient.be put into a payroll document source folder for
When keeping track of payroll using journals,easy access when requested. The Labor
there are two journals that are used in thisDepartment is one organization that requests
system. A Payroll Journal records payroll that isthese payroll source documents on an audit basis.
due to be paid to employees. When it is time toIt is important to keep documents well organized,
disburse payments, a Payroll Disbursement Journalwhether they are in paper form or computer
records amounts when payroll is finally paid toform. Use software for your accounting payroll
employees. Journals must be kept with detailedthat will allow you to customize your fields to
information on hours worked, amounts to be paid,accommodate your particular needs, as well as
dates and to which employees. Automating thissoftware that will make it easy for you to
process makes data entry very simple, and anytransfer your information to other accounting
errors can be caught early rather than searchingprograms.
paper journals to catch mistakes.