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dbirke
July 14, 2022
Question

Assigning An Employee's Payroll Costs to Multiple Classes

  • July 14, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 0 views

My nonprofit just started using classes to track expenses. One of our primary reasons for doing so was to allocate employee payroll costs among various program classes. However, I just learned that QBO does not allow a particular employee's payroll costs to be assigned to multiple classes -- only one class can be assigned to an employee.

 

Surely other users of QBO have been frustrated by this significant limitation.  I'm curious if more experienced users have devised solutions or "work arounds" to assign employees' payroll costs to multiple classes. I'd appreciate any advice or suggestions you have.

 

 

  I would like to assign an employee's payroll costs to multiple classes, but I understand that this is not currently possible with QBO.  What "work-arounds" have QBO users devised to solve this problem?  I'm curious whether users have developed standard journal entries to efficiently allocate payroll costs to the appropriate class.

    4 replies

    J
    JamaicaA
    July 14, 2022

    You’re right, we can only assign a single class per employee, @dbirke. I'll go over how we can work around this so you can organize a way of tracking your payroll costs.

     

    I understand how useful it is to have the option to assign multiple classes to an employee. This way, you’ll be able to track their work and process their paycheck with ease.

     

    You’ll want to share your idea to our product development team by sending feedback. They can then review your suggestion and possibly include it in future updates.

     

    Here's how:

     

    1. Go to the Gear icon.
    2. Select Feedback.
    3. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
    4. Then select Next to submit feedback.

     

    Alternatively, you can consider using a third party app that can handle the function you're looking for. Please know that we’re unable to recommend which ones to use. However, you can compare their features, rating, and read other user’s comments.

     

    For the 3rd party apps that you integrate with QuickBooks, check this page: QuickBooks Apps.

     

    You can also seek additional advice from your accountant. This way, you can avoid any errors and ensure the accuracy of your payroll. 

     

    For additional reference about classes, check out these articles:

     

     

    I'll be available if you require additional assistance with your payroll and QBO. Please leave a response and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

    D
    dbirkeAuthor
    July 15, 2022

    Thank you for the response.  My organization is a tiny nonprofit and most third-party apps are too expensive for our budget.  However, if any QBO users out there know of an inexpensive app that adds this functionality, I'd appreciate hearing about it. 

     

    I'd also like to hear from users if they have devised routine journal entries to "divide up" employee payroll costs among the appropriate classes.  I'd prefer not to try to "reinvent the wheel" if someone has already developed a solution using journal entries.

     

    I'd also like to add my voice to the chorus of users who are asking for this functionality to be added to QBO as soon as possible. The use of classes to track expenses in QBO is of little value if the only option available is to "dump" all of an employee's payroll cost into a single class.  That simply does not reflect the reality at my organization (where employees contribute to multiple classes), and I suspect the same is true at most other organizations.  And if payroll expenses (which for most organization comprise a large -- if not the largest -- share of total expenses) cannot be accurately tracked through classes, then the class functionality QBO offers has little "real world" value and makes QBO a far less desirable product.

     

     

      K
      kross1
      January 16, 2024

      I am having the same problem. I need to know total payroll $ under each class code. I've been asking this for 2 years now.  I wish they'd fix this.

        A
        Add_Subtract
        March 9, 2023

        For Quickbooks Desktop I am able to split payroll costs across jobs&classes by populating each employees earnings in the paycheck detail. The key is to not assign employees to a class by person. When running payroll I follow these steps: 

        1. Start Scheduled Payroll

        2. Open Paycheck Detail

        3. Enter each earning Payroll Item with hours, customer: Job and Class. Multiple lines allows you to specify different job/class.

        4. Save & Next.

         

        I have 32 employees with several jobs to split each payroll so it is a necessary process & ultimately does not add too much time to payroll process.

        For this to work completely, the company preferences in payroll & employees needs to indicate "job costing, class and item tracking for paycheck expenses" and "assign one class per - earnings item"

        0
        0609025242
        April 7, 2023

        I am a CPA and am working with a small non-profit.  We were forced to go to QBO as the Desktop package was so expensive and Intuit is essentially forcing everyone to the cloud...even though QBO is not quiet ready for prime time yet.

         

        We were able to use multiple classes in Desktop.  We need that because employees work on several different grants each week.  If we could do it in Desktop...why can't we use it here? 

         

        There needs to be an immediate fix to this.

          J
          jennifer-yoshast
          August 14, 2024

          yes, we are a small non-profit as well and this missing function so frustrating and I have not found a work around. Even being on calls multiple times with help.

          I can't even figure out to get my year end reports done, because i have to report out by "class" (project), I hope this issue gets updated soon. 

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