Payroll Tips | QuickBooks for Contractors blog

21May 2013 by Ben Smyth

Automating Job Costing Overtime, an 800 pound gorilla with an attitude

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, From Our Guest Bloggers, Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Add-Ons

Calculating and distributing employee overtime is a burdensome process that many business owners and payroll administrators have to deal with on a weekly basis. Everyone has a different opinion on just "HOW" that overtime is to be calculated and distributed. By everyone, I mean the business owner, the payroll clerk, heck even the Federal and State government. No wonder it's just a problematic situation! At first blush this seems drop dead simple. Overtime goes to the time worked after 40 hours, or maybe over x hours per day as well. This seems reasonable, but would it be simpler if overtime were just distributed over all the jobs that the employee worked that week. That seems fairer, as each job gets a share of the overtime costs for that week. Then…

08May 2013 by Nancy Smyth

Confused About Payroll Deductions and Payroll Liabilities?

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

Are you confused about payroll deductions and payroll liabilities? If so, don't feel alone! They can confuse a lot of people. Here is a question that was asked and discussed in a bookkeeping group that I belong to. Payroll Deduction Question: Employee has voluntary disability deducted from pay. This is not a liability for the employer to remit...how do I enter this? Expense sounds weird for this situation. Have you run into a similar situation? If so, here are some basic rules and procedures. Answer: Once an employee gives an employer authorization to deduct something from his paycheck (health insurance contribution, union dues, child support, etc.) it becomes the employer's liability (responsibility) to make sure that the money is deducted and sent on it's merry little way. If the employer…

18Apr 2013 by Nancy Smyth

Entering Historical Paychecks – Payroll Taxes and the Accounts They Post To

Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

Setting up QuickBooks payroll and entering historical information can be quite confusing. Thankfully there is a Payroll Setup wizard that will help you through most of the really rough parts. I am entering historical payroll from 2012. Our fiscal year began 10/1/12. It is now 4/12/13. How is best way to enter this payroll and balance month by month until I get to the current info. Also, I am confused on what accounts the payroll taxes post to. I'm not sure I have them set up at this point. Especially on the exact accounts I need for payroll taxes and are they debits or credits. and how do I link them to my chart of accounts. Any help would be appreciated. Debbie Hi Debbie If you are entering historical payroll…

07Nov 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Job Costing Payroll When Using a Payroll Service

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

Using an outside payroll service, such as Paychecx or ADP, is a popular option for many business owners. While using a payroll service often provides many benefits one of the biggest challenges or drawbacks is for the company that needs job costing. See this question submitted by a reader. My company uses a 3rd party to do all of our payroll. We receive an itemized report back showing what we spent for the week. I am having trouble trying to get this information charged out to individual jobs. I track all of the hours separately in Excel, with estimated costs. How can I job cost this information? Thank you – Michelle Hi Michelle I bet you are having trouble getting payroll information charged to individual jobs, that’s one of the…

02Oct 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2013 Revamped Employee Record

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks 2013 - What's New?

The Employee Record has been revamped in QuickBooks 2013 and that is one of the new changes in design that I really like! For years we've had to navigate through the employee record through both tabs and drop down menus and in my opinion the overhaul was long overdue! For years the typical instructions for navigating through an employee record in order to change a rate of pay went something like this: Go to the Employee Center, in the employee list find this employee, double-click or click the Edit Employee button, now grab that drop down menu and choose Payroll and Compensation Info - no, no, no there is a drop down menu just above the tabs that say Personal, Address and Contact, and Additional Info. It was quite a…

28Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Tracking Timesheet Hours vs Hours Invoiced

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, Reports

Tracking timesheet hours vs hours invoiced is crucial for a companies cash flow. See this question submitted by a reader. Hello Experts, I'm looking for a report so I can compare hours reported via the timesheet or really hours that have been paid out Vs. the hours that have been paid for or Invoiced. I've also noticed it is possible to add time to timesheets that have already been billed. Is there a way to prevent this? Thanks for your time and energy. Brian Hello Brian Thanks for stopping by and submitting a question. QuickBooks has some good time tracking reports, here are my recommendations for some reports for you to look at. The Time by Job Detail Report is available in all versions/flavors (Pro, Premier, Enterprise); access it from…

09Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Reporting Fringe Benefits Paid in Cash on Certified Payroll

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, The "Sunburst" Website, Webinars & Training

Reporting prevailing wage fringe benefits paid in cash to the employee has specific requirements when completing the Federal WH-347 Certified Payroll Report. Here is a question from a reader who is submitting the built-in QuickBooks certified payroll report and is being told that she is not correctly reporting the cash fringe benefit amounts. Hi, I found your blog through a Google search and can't believe all the information you have here about certified payroll, prevailing wage and using QuickBooks - so far I've learned so much! I could really use some help and couldn't find anything that I thought fit our specific situation. We are a non-union contractor working on prevailing wage jobs and we pay the full fringe benefit amount to the employee in cash. We use the QuickBooks…

01Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Breaking Down Payroll by Job, Phase and Cost Code

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Reports

Breaking down payroll by job, phase, and cost code is something that I'm often asked about by the construction clients/customers that I work with. Construction payroll is probably one of the more complex payrolls that anyone can encounter, see this question submitted by a reader. I need payroll broken down by Job, then Phase (service item), then cost code. Is there a way to enter time in QuickBooks by three categories? Thanks, Susan Hi Susan Thanks for stopping by and submitting this awesome question! Actually, I'm asked this question a lot and have been working on an entire training series (eBook and several videos) about different ways that contractors can set up QuickBooks to handle even the most complex payrolls like this - unfortunately it won't be finished until…

23Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Wage Restitution and Certified Payroll Revisions

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers

Wage restitution and certified payroll revisions happen when you miss an update to the wage determination which increases the prevailing wage rate and the fringe benefit rate or perhaps you weren't informed until after working on the project for several weeks/months that this project was subject to prevailing wage. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of clear guidelines for submitting revised certified payroll reports, however, I've had experience in following two different sets of requirements. See this question submitted by a reader. My question is, if a subcontractor pays restitution for an employee(s), do they have to send the same Certified Payroll Reports back with revision on top? Or will they have to send a separate Certified Payroll Report with the dates they were owed restitution stating the dates they…

22Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use 6/15/2012-6/21/2012

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News, IRS Information, News You Can Use, Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Corner, Social Media, Webinars & Training

Weekly wrap-up of news and information from around the web – there’s so much information out there that it’s difficult (at best) to keep up! I’ve added a WordPress plug-in that grabs information from my Twitter stream to help me (and hopefully you as well) keep up with everything. Look for the Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use every Friday. I’ll try to be consistent and organize the information into the same categories each week. Accounting & Taxes A letter from a Bookkeeper https://t.co/nr0twsHi via @bruce_taxguy -> How I answered the letter https://t.co/WIa8lzll via @bruce_taxguy -> IRS "repair regulations" can be overly complex https://t.co/O9Ix29KR -> Is Remortgaging Equity Release Debt a Good Option? https://t.co/TRNXJ9Ue via @bruce_taxguy -> 3 Strategies to Help You Conquer Your Debt https://t.co/aLTQtJQX via @bruce_taxguy ->…

12Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Worker’s Comp Increases 45% in California, Beginning 7/1/2012

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News, Payroll Tips, Webinars & Training

California Worker's Compensation Insurance premiums will increase by 45% over last year for renewals after July 1, 2012 according to The Worker's Comp Executive. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones went against a unified front of labor and employer representatives siding with the insurance industry and the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) in approving a 8.3% increase mid-year rate hike for California employers. Added to the 37% rate increase he approved for January, July and later renewals are facing an average rate increase of 45.3% over last year at the same time. Worker’s Comp and payroll taxes take a huge bite out of a contractors profit when working on Public Works construction projects – especially if the contractor is paying the full fringe benefit rate of the prevailing wage…

05Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Think You Can’t Afford to Pay Your Payroll Taxes-Think Again

IRS Information, Payroll Tips

Failing to remit payroll taxes is a big mistake! Sometimes a business owner will let the payment of payroll taxes slide in favor of paying other vendors OR perhaps will make a partial payment, thinking it will be ok -- not a good idea ----- always remit the full amount of your payroll taxes before paying other bills. Here are a couple of examples why. If you have check writing authority and it can be shown that you were aware your company or client paid other expenses when payroll taxes were due, the IRS can come after you for the taxes, penalties and interest. D and her husband were equal owners and sole corporate officers of a business. After they separated, they continued to run the business. The firm…

16May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Payroll for Work Hours & Drive Time Invoicing Problem

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

Entering payroll for normal employee work hours and drive time and passing only the work hours through to client invoices is not only important but confusing. The following question was submitted by a reader. Hello - I own a residential and commercial cleaning company. I have several employees. I pay from the start of the first job till the end of the last job of the day (not including lunch break). I have my employees fill out a time tracker sheet each day that shows the time started at the first job till the end, drive time in between jobs, so on and so forth. I enter this into QuickBooks but I can't figure out where to enter in drive time to pay the girls their hourly wage on…

15May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Deducting the Cost of Lost Equipment from an Employee’s Pay

IRS Information, Payroll Tips

Can you deduct the cost of lost equipment from your employee’s pay? As a business owner I'm betting that on more than one occasion you have had an employee who has lost his company provided cell phone more than once and you've have to replace it. Perhaps you want to recover the cost of the phone via a payroll deduction - before you do, read the rest of this great article from HR Matters E-Tips, because the answer depends first on state and federal restrictions and second on how much you want to deduct. Both federal and state laws limit the deductions employers can take from their employee’s wages. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which requires minimum wage payments and premium overtime pay for covered employees,…

09May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Construction Payroll, Should I Do It In-house or Outsource It?

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Construction News, Payroll Tips

Construction payroll can be complex and many business owners wonder if they should hire a payroll clerk and issue payroll in-house or if they should outsource it. As a contractor a significant portion of your job costs involve payroll and labor burden (taxes, worker's compensation insurance, general liability insurance, company paid fringe benefits etc.) and you need to have these numbers included in your job costing reports so you can analyze your bidding practices and know whether or not you made a profit on the job. If your employee paychecks are not run through your accounting software you loose this vital piece of job costing information. Construction payroll can be complex and the lure of an outside payroll service such as Intuit Full Service Payroll, ADP, Paychex, Ceridian, etc.…