I recently started working for a charity which uses QuickBooks Pro 2012 and am setting up the manual payroll, it wasn't ever set up before. Can someone please help me with the UK accounts and account types I need to create within QB. The only information I can find from Inuit is US based or they try and sell me unnecessary payroll services. We only have 5 employees at present and I would like to prepare for projects later this year.
Hello Parmi
Welcome to the site first of all. Secondly we usually ask for people to add their first name to their signature bar, which appears at the bottom of the postings as then it saves us looking it up each time we respond. You can do this via editing your profile.
The other thing we ask for is a little introduction - perhaps how long you have been a bookkeeper, what training etc as this helps with pitching the responses.
With regards to quick books - I have it but only use it for a very small local Scout Group so I cant give very specific advise but sometimes can point you in the right direction. I do have a question - when you say manual payroll, do you mean the cost/nominal codes to post the entries to? How is the actual payroll completed now - via some other software and if so which one?
By account types - I assume you mean cost/nominal codes, as in the Chart of Accounts? These are usually set up as fairly standard by you chosing the option of 'charity' or 'limited company' when you start the whole process off, so there is no wholesale set up to be done, although you might like to add your own codes as you go along. Looking at your logo it seems it would need to be a Limited company.
Let me know and hopefully I can help some more.
PS - Please remove your company's identifiying logo from the site.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
I first did bookkeeping way back in the 90s, big ledgers etc and learned on the job. A few years ago I had an accident and decided to change from my old career as a Stage Manager and take up accounting as my new career choice. After passing my AAT Accounting level 3 in June 2015, I am now in my first paid job working for a not for profit organisation in Bristol, which is registered as a limited company. Previous holders of my post obviously had zero training and I have spent the last 6 months piecing together the accounts.
For the new year, I am setting up the Payroll system on QuickBooks Pro 2012, it would be a heck of a lot easier using Sage! My question related to the types of accounts, in the Chart of Accounts, that I need to create; expenses, liabilities etc. I have tried looking online but the tutorials etc are USA based and I'm not sure that these work the same i England. Its probably really easy and I may be overthinking it.
Quickbooks appears to be in meltdown, lots of complaints and terrible/non-existent customer care apart from reps trying to sell more products/online subscriptions etc. Manual payroll is no longer supported apparently but can be found.
It depends how much detail you need, but these are the basics :
6600 - Payroll Expenses
You can either put everything in there (i.e. gross wages and Employers NI), or separate them out,
in which case you would need to create a couple of accounts within the 6601-6699 range, for example
6401 for gross wages and 6402 for Employers NI. If you need to split Directors Remuneration you can
create additional codes within this range for that.
In the Balance Sheet, you probably already have as standard an account called Payroll Liabilities (2400).
I would create 2 new ones, "Net Pay" (maybe 2401) and PAYE/NI Liabilities (2402?)
So when you create a journal for the monthly salaries, you will debit 6601-6699 for the total cost (split as necessary)
and credit the balance sheet 2401-2402, split between net pay and PAYE/NI so that when the payments to the staff and
HMRC are made they can be cleared off.
Welcome to the world they dont teach you during AAT. What was it one of the trainers (not one of our esteemed posters I hasten to add!) said to my son about payroll journals last year ''just learn this off by heart to pass the exam, then forget it - you wont need it again for the exams'' Never mind real life. I made him learn it properly - drive him mad by asking him all the time!
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Lol Lurching from pillar to post! I hear you. The next issue will be to find desktop accounting software. The Anti Cloud league have got it right as far as I can tell.
Hi Parmi
Do you mean you are looking for desktop for your own business? If so have a look at VT. I have to say Im a Sage fan, but have recently tried VT for a one off client - not finished yet and not found my way round it properly but most impressed with what I saw and the ease of use (and ease of fixing something when you do it wrong!!) Quite a few on here use it so you should never be short of help.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Thanks I will definitely look into VT for my own business. That bit is quite easy, I only work for one client at the moment, my part time (hahaha) position is hopefully going to turn into a full time post with a salary. New funding for new projects is rolling out this year we hope.
My question was for the charity. I think we will stay with what we have for now, QB Pro 2012, until I can find another option that is desk based
VT is desk based.... Although easy enough to keep the .vtr file in dropbox to benefit from the more positive aspects of cloud based solutions especially as the latest version of your data is backed up to your hard drive so no risk of outages.
I'm another strong advocate of the software which I use for all of my service based industries (IT, Teaching, Therapists, etc.).
VT is not such a strong contender where stock control is required where Sage may be more appropriate (yep site, I was just nice to Sage and it's not April the 1st!).
HTH,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Hi Parmi
There is a good book you can get to assist you - QuickBooks for Dummies. Worth getting and thumbing through when you have the time, or just having it as a user manual as and when required. Also - does yours have a good 'help' function?
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
I actually found the manual stashed away in a deep dark corner. The help function is a bit poo and customer support is just the sales team. Luckily there's plenty of stuff online, I look at the different ways folk do stuff and use what works best here
You can also use the book as a doorstop! There are quite a few people on here who use Quickbooks so you should be able to get sorted as long as you arent a few minutes away from any deadline as folk do come and go quite a bit. Does it have a practice mode that you can have a go at, as Sage does? The good thing is, unlike most cloudy stuff, you can at least do a backup, try a few things out and then do a restore if you need - that was the way I found my way round Sage.
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Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
To be honest, I don't really find QB that tricky. I learned Sage at college so all the terms make sense to me. Clearing up the mess left by civilians has been the issue.
