payroll expense accounts

Thanks for posting here, @creativekate.

Allow me to help you assign the different expense accounts to your employees according to their respective departments.

We can assign their payroll expenses by class to track them easily. Here's how: 

1. From the Edit tab, click Preferences.
2. Select Accounting, then Company Preferences.
3. Choose Use class tracking for transactions.
4. If prompted, pick Yes to save changes.
5. Select Payroll & Employees.
6. Ensure that Full Payroll is selected in the QuickBooks Payroll Features section.
7. Choose Job Costing, Class, and Item tracking for paycheck expenses.
8. Select how you’d like to assign a class.
   * Entire paycheck if you want to assign one class to an entire paycheck.
   * Earnings item if you want to assign a different class to each earning item on the paycheck.
9. Then OK.

For more info, feel free to read this article: Set up and track your payroll expenses by class.

You might want to create, manage, assign, or update pay schedules, check out this article: Set up and manage payroll schedules.

If you have additional questions about managing employee's payroll info, never hesitate to reply to this post. I'll be willing to assist you. Keep safe and thanks again.