How to Prepare a Payroll Journal Entry + Examples

payroll accounting examples

You make a second journal entry after giving the employee the paycheck. Once you do so, you won’t owe wages, and your liabilities will decrease. The cash will also decrease because you allocated a sum to the employee.

Before joining the team, she was a content producer at Fit Small Business where she served as an editor and strategist covering small business marketing content. She is a former Google Tech Entrepreneur and holds an MSc in international marketing from Edinburgh Napier University. Magazine and the founder of ProsperBull, a financial literacy program taught in U.S. high schools. Benefits
Determine the benefits that you will offer employees, such as health insurance, pension plans, child care benefits and paid leave.

Fringe Benefits

Payments are usually selected between weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. The sum of all the concepts listed above forms the accrued expense for keeping an employee on the payroll. Business owners love Patriot’s award-winning payroll software. Get up and running with free payroll setup, and enjoy free expert support. Try our payroll software in a free, no-obligation 30-day trial. For example, if a credit increases an account, you will increase the opposite account with a debit.

payroll accounting examples

To get a clear picture of your company’s finances and stay compliant, keep your payroll accounting up-to-date. Throughout her career, Heather has worked to help hundreds of small business owners in managing payroll accounting examples many aspects of their business, from bookkeeping to accounting to HR. Before joining Fit Small Business, Heather was the Payroll/HRS Manager for a top cloud accounting firm in the industry.

Step 7. Calculate Wage Deductions

Payroll deductions are the withholdings an organization automatically takes from a paycheck to go toward that individual’s taxes. Net pay — meaning how much an employee actually receives in a paycheck – is the amount after deductions have been made. Every tax season, you’ll find this amount in withholdings on your W2.

This means you know whether your organization is compliant with tax laws imposed by the local, state and federal government, so you can avoid expensive penalties and tax audits. Plus, employees will also be able to track the amount of their compensation allotted for tax obligations. In this article, we explain everything you need to know about payroll accounting, how to get it done and when to start using payroll software. Always remember that the expense accounts must be balanced before the transaction is considered closed. Now that you’ve recorded all the necessary information, all that’s left to do is to adjust your debits and credits once the payment has officially been made.