📊 a journal entry
ProAdvisor Prep: Workforce — Module 4: Running Payroll and Filing Taxes
October 21, 2026
The Resistance Accountants | Accounting Against the Machine
Welcome to the final Workforce module.
We’ve met QuickBooks Workforce, untangled the wonderful world of payroll taxes, and configured enough settings to make a reasonably intelligent person question their career choices.
Now we’re going to do the thing everybody has been preparing for:
Actually pay people.
Which sounds simple until somebody submits the wrong hours, payday lands after a bank holiday, or a client calls to announce that an employee was paid twice.
This is where payroll stops being a collection of settings and becomes a responsibility.
Because when payroll goes wrong, somebody’s rent money might be involved.
And that is not the moment to do something like….oh idk, trust a confidently worded AI response without checking it, which seems to be a trending folly.
1. Running Regular Payroll: The Ordinary Payday Adventure
Regular payroll follows an established pay schedule: weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, or whatever schedule the employer has properly configured.
The basic workflow in QuickBooks Online Payroll is straightforward.
Walkthrough: Run a scheduled payroll
Open All apps → Payroll → Employees.
Select Run payroll.
Choose the appropriate pay schedule and select Continue.
Confirm the pay period and pay date.
Select the employees being paid.
Review hours, salary, overtime, bonuses, deductions, and other applicable pay details.
If using QuickBooks Time, review approved time.
Select Preview payroll.
Check the payroll bank account and review the paycheck details.
Select Submit payroll when everything is correct.
Notice that we reviewed the payroll before submitting it.
That wasn’t an optional decorative step.
Before clicking Submit, verify:
Employee names and pay dates
Hours worked and applicable overtime
Gross wages, deductions, and net pay
Employee and employer taxes
The bank account and total funding amount
Any unusual changes from the previous payroll
If something looks wrong, investigate it before sending money into the banking system.
A five-minute review can prevent a five-day headache.
2. Unscheduled Payroll: Because Employees Don’t Always Wait for Payday
Sometimes payroll needs to happen outside the regular schedule.
Examples include bonuses, commissions, certain final paychecks, and fringe-benefit reporting.
QuickBooks supports unscheduled payroll workflows, but the available options depend on the payment type and payroll service.
Walkthrough: Start an unscheduled payroll
Open All apps → Payroll → Employees.
Open the dropdown beside Run payroll.
Select the appropriate available option, such as Bonus only, Commission only, or Fringe benefits only.
Complete any additional questions about the payment and its tax treatment.
Confirm the applicable pay period and pay date.
Select the employee or employees.
Enter and review the compensation details.
Preview the payroll and verify the bank account.
Submit when everything is correct.
Important: Don’t assume every bonus, commission, final paycheck, or correction should be processed using the same option.
Final-pay requirements vary by state, and different payment types may have different tax treatment.
An unscheduled payroll is not permission to improvise.
It’s simply a way to process legitimate payroll outside the ordinary schedule.
3. Direct Deposit: The Deadline Is Not a Suggestion
Direct deposit has processing requirements.
And those requirements depend on the employer’s actual payroll service, funding lead time, and payment date.
QuickBooks supports different direct-deposit funding arrangements, including same-day, next-day, and longer lead times.
Do not assume that every Core, Premium, or Elite account has the same processing deadline.
Walkthrough: Check the employer’s funding time
Open Settings → Payroll settings.
Find the Direct deposit section.
Review the funding time shown above the direct-deposit limits.
Confirm the required submission deadline for the intended pay date.
Account for weekends and applicable banking holidays.
For example, Intuit’s published guidance identifies a 5:00 PM Pacific Time submission deadline for certain next-day direct deposits.
But that does not mean every payroll transaction uses that cutoff.
The actual funding arrangement matters.
The Resistance Accountant’s rule: Check the account’s real funding time before promising anybody that a paycheck will arrive tomorrow.
And don’t assume a banking holiday always adds exactly 24 hours.
Check the business-day schedule and the actual processing requirements.
4. Payroll Taxes: Automation Is Helpful, Not Magical
Payroll taxes are not simply a matter of calculating withholding and hoping the money finds its way to the IRS.
Employers have obligations involving tax deposits, returns, state unemployment insurance, and potentially local taxes.
QuickBooks Workforce can automate supported payroll tax payments and filings after the necessary setup is completed.
Important 2026 change: Beginning July 1, 2026, Intuit removed the option to turn off automated taxes for QuickBooks Workforce customers. Taxes configured for automated handling are paid and filed through the service. Intuit could give a fuck about your manual tax payments.
That means older instructions telling learners to disable automated taxes and switch to a universal manual-filing mode are outdated.
Also, local-tax automation is not available in every payroll offering. Check the specific product and subscription.
Walkthrough: Review payroll tax payments
Open All apps → Payroll → Payroll taxes.
Select Payments.
Review the Coming Up section.
Check the Scheduled section for payments ready to be processed or already in progress.
Review previously submitted payments when necessary.
Walkthrough: Review tax filings
From Payroll taxes, select Filings.
Review forms under Coming Up.
Examine forms in the filing workflow.
Select Preview when available to review a form.
Check previously filed forms and investigate any notices or discrepancies.
Common federal forms include:
Form 941: Generally used for quarterly federal payroll tax reporting.
Form 940: Generally used for annual federal unemployment tax reporting.
Form W-2: Reports employee wages and applicable taxes for the year.
Form 944: Used by employers specifically notified by the IRS to file annually instead of filing Form 941.
State requirements vary.
And remember: tax deposit schedules and tax return filing deadlines are not necessarily the same thing.
Automation doesn’t eliminate the employer’s responsibility to maintain accurate information, sufficient funds, and appropriate tax registrations.
5. Fixing Payroll Mistakes: Do Not Just Hit Void and Pray
Let’s say a client reports incorrect hours after a payroll has been submitted.
Your first job is to determine the status of the paycheck and direct deposit.
Walkthrough: Investigate an incorrect paycheck
Open All apps → Payroll → Employees.
Select View Paychecks.
Locate the affected employee and paycheck.
Review the pay date, amount, and available actions.
Open the Action dropdown to see whether Edit, Delete, or Void is available.
Follow the product’s instructions for the action appropriate to the paycheck’s processing status.
If the system won’t permit the necessary correction, contact QuickBooks Payroll Support.
Now for the part that can save somebody from making a very expensive mistake:
Voiding a paycheck does not automatically cancel a direct deposit or return the money.
In QuickBooks, voiding changes the payroll record, but it is not a magical reversal button for an electronic bank transfer.
If the employee has already received an overpayment, the correction may require assistance from QuickBooks Payroll Support.
Do not assume you can simply reduce the next paycheck.
Overpayment recovery can involve state wage-deduction restrictions, employee authorization requirements, and payroll tax consequences.
Never use a regular journal entry as a substitute for correcting payroll records.
A journal entry can affect accounting balances without properly correcting employee wage records, tax calculations, or payroll filings.
If the error affects a prior quarter or year, determine whether amended payroll tax forms are necessary.
6. Payroll Reports: The Numbers Have to Tell the Same Story
Running payroll is only part of the job.
You also need to know how to review what happened.
Useful reports include:
Payroll Summary
Provides an overview of wages, taxes, deductions, and contributions for the selected period.
Payroll Details
Useful for investigating specific paycheck components and reconciling wages or deductions.
Payroll Tax Liability
Helps review payroll tax liabilities over the appropriate reporting period.
Payroll Tax and Wage Summary
Useful for examining taxable wages and payroll tax categories, including federal withholding, Social Security, Medicare, and applicable state taxes.
Payroll Tax Payments
Helps review recorded payroll tax payments.
Walkthrough: Investigate payroll tax amounts
Open Reports.
Search for Payroll Tax and Wage Summary.
Select the relevant date range.
Apply the report filters.
Review federal and applicable state tax categories.
Compare the amounts with payroll records and the relevant tax filings.
One important distinction: A tax liability report tells you about taxes calculated or owed. It does not necessarily prove those amounts have already been paid to an agency.
Check the payment records separately.
Because calculated, scheduled, withdrawn, and paid are not interchangeable words.
7. Three Payroll Disasters Worth Avoiding
Disaster #1: The bank holiday surprise
A client submits payroll using the normal routine, forgetting that a banking holiday affects processing.
What to do: Check the funding lead time and banking calendar before submitting payroll. Allow the required business days rather than assuming the usual schedule still works.
Disaster #2: Fixing payroll with a journal entry
Someone discovers incorrect payroll taxes and tries to fix everything by adjusting the general ledger.
What to do: Investigate the underlying payroll records and tax settings. Use the supported payroll correction process, and reconcile the accounting records afterward.
Disaster #3: Ignoring an updated unemployment tax rate
The employer receives a new state unemployment insurance rate but continues running payroll with the old one.
What to do: Verify the rate and effective date against the state agency’s notice, update the appropriate payroll settings, and review affected payroll periods for any necessary correction.
The objective isn’t to become terrified of payroll.
It’s to recognize the moments when checking one setting is considerably easier than cleaning up six months of mistakes.
8. The Resistance Accountants Final Payroll Scavenger Hunt
The scenario
It’s Thursday afternoon.
Your client is preparing Friday’s direct-deposit payroll when they discover that a field manager’s hours have been doubled.
The employee hasn’t necessarily been paid yet, but nobody has checked the payroll’s processing status.
Your mission is to investigate the problem without creating another one.
Task 1: Before Submission
The payroll is still in draft form.
Where should you correct the employee’s hours, and what should you review before submitting the payroll?
Task 2: After Submission
The payroll has been submitted.
What should you check before attempting to edit, delete, or void the paycheck?
Why is clicking Void not a guarantee that the direct deposit will be canceled?
Task 3: After Payment
The employee has received an overpayment.
Should you automatically subtract the amount from the next paycheck?
What is the safer next step?
Task 4: Tax Reporting
Your client wants to compare federal withholding, Social Security, Medicare, and applicable state payroll tax amounts for the month.
Which payroll report would help you review the tax breakdown?
And where would you look to verify whether the taxes were actually paid?
9. Scavenger Hunt Answers
Task 1 — Correct the draft before submission.
Open the scheduled payroll, correct the employee’s hours, and review the recalculated gross pay, taxes, deductions, and net pay. Preview the payroll before submitting it.
Task 2 — Check the paycheck’s processing status and available actions.
Use Employees → View Paychecks and inspect the affected paycheck.
The available correction depends on processing status and the payroll service.
Voiding a paycheck does not, by itself, cancel the direct deposit or recover funds.
Task 3 — Don’t automatically deduct the overpayment.
Determine whether the paycheck can be corrected through the supported workflow. If it cannot, contact QuickBooks Payroll Support for the appropriate procedure.
Also review applicable wage-payment laws and any employee authorization requirements before attempting recovery.
Task 4 — Use the Payroll Tax and Wage Summary report.
Run the report for the relevant period to review the tax categories.
Then check Payroll taxes → Payments and the appropriate payment records to determine whether the liabilities were actually paid.
A calculated liability is not proof of a completed payment.
10. The Final Word: Payroll Is a Human Responsibility
Congratulations.
You’ve reached the end of our QuickBooks Workforce study series.
We’ve covered employee access, payroll fundamentals, setup, processing, tax filing, and what to do when the numbers don’t behave.
If there’s one lesson worth taking away, it’s this:
Automation is a tool. Accuracy is a responsibility.
QuickBooks can calculate, organize, and automate an impressive amount of work.
AI can help you understand the process.
But neither one gets to replace the human judgment required when somebody’s paycheck, taxes, or livelihood is on the line.
Check the settings.
Verify the numbers.
Question instructions that sound suspiciously confident.
And for the love of everything holy, don’t fix a payroll error by randomly poking the general ledger until the balance looks pretty.
Use the machine. Train the human.
The Resistance Accountants — Training humans to be harder to replace.
Special thanks to Taissa for helping develop the Workforce study materials and keeping this particular circus moving.
Official References and Further Reading
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