How to integrate Patriot Payroll and QuickBooks Online

Background

If you use both Patriot Software and Intuit QuickBooks Online, you can connect your Patriot account and integrate your payroll entries from Patriot into QuickBooks Online. Each time your run a payroll in Patriot Software, a journal entry will be created and automatically sent to your QuickBooks Online account.

Connect Patriot Software with QuickBooks Online

Go to Settings > Payroll Settings > Payroll Integration Options
Select QuickBooks Online, and click “Connect to QuickBooks”
Use your login credentials to connect to your QuickBooks Online account
The QuickBooks Online sign-up page will pop up for you to authorize integrating your QuickBooks account under the same login, choose the account you want to connect to. You’ll see a pop-up confirming your account is connected.

Choose Integration Options

Journal Entry Type: Select how you want your journal entries imported into your QuickBooks Online account.

Summary: Payroll for all employees will be sent over as a total to each account you select.
Line-by-line employee detail: This will break out the journal entries by each employee.

Do you use clearing accounts? In this case, we’re not talking about a bank account that you may only use for payroll. This would be a clearing account in your Quickbooks Online account in your general ledger. This clearing account is a liability account for your payroll liabilities, such as taxes and deductions you withhold from your employees’ pay. As you reconcile each line item when they clear your bank, you move it from the clearing (or holding account) to a more specific account in your general ledger. In effect, you are clearing out this “account,” and it should have zero balance when everything posts to the specific general ledger account.

Which QuickBooks account will your taxes (and direct deposit, if applicable) be collected from? Choose the asset account (typically a bank account) that Patriot will withdraw the money from.

Do you want to map all of your employee journal entries to the same expense and liability accounts?

If your entries post to the same accounts for all employees, choose “Yes.”
If you have specific accounts that, for example, the owner’s payroll goes to, select “No.” You will create different “profiles” for each money type, contribution, or deduction, and assign employees to them. Read Create mapping profiles for journal entries below for more information.

Map wages, taxes and expenses to QBO accounts

Gross Pay – Select the expense account you want your gross pay applied to.

Hour or Money Type – If you’re going to map specific money or hour types to particular accounts in your QBO expense accounts, click the link that reads +Map Hour and Money Types to Account (in the software).

In this example, the money types Bonus, Commission, and Expense Reimbursement were each mapped to different expense accounts.

Employee Tax – The accounts listed depend on whether you have Patriot clearing accounts and are Basic Payroll or have not completed the Full Service Payroll setup yet. NOTE: This field will not show if you have completed your Full Service Payroll setup and indicated you DO NOT use clearing accounts)

If you have Basic Payroll, this will be a liability account.
If you have Full Service Payroll (no clearing account) and completed your tax filing set up, you will not see this question because it will default to the bank account you have indicated above.
If you have Full Service Payroll and indicated you use a clearing account, select the clearing account you use in QuickBooks in the dropdown.
If you want to map specific taxes, click the link +Map Employee Tax to Account. Select the type of employee tax and corresponding QBO account.
Click +Add Row to add more employee taxes to specific liability or clearing accounts.

Employer Tax (Expense) – Choose the expense account that employer expenses should be applied to.

Click +Add Row to add more employee taxes to specific expense accounts.

Employer Tax (Remittance) – The accounts listed depend on whether you have indicated you have clearing accounts and are Basic Payroll or have not completed the Full Service Payroll setup. NOTE: This field will not show if you have completed your Full Service Payroll setup and indicated you DO NOT use clearing accounts.

If you have Basic Payroll, this will be a liability account.
If you have Full Service Payroll (no clearing account) and completed your tax filing set up, you will not see this question because it will default to the bank account you have indicated above.
If you have Full Service Payroll and use a clearing account, select the clearing account you use in QuickBooks in the dropdown for employer taxes.
If you want to map specific taxes, click the link +Map Employer Tax to Account. Select the type of employer tax and corresponding QBO account.

Direct Deposit – This will only show if you have direct deposit active in your Patriot account. The accounts listed depend on whether you have indicated you have clearing accounts or have Basic Payroll and have direct deposit set up. NOTE: This field will not show if you have completed your Full Service Payroll setup and indicated you DO NOT use clearing accounts.

If you have Basic Payroll and do not use clearing accounts, this will be an asset (for example, the bank account) you want to withdraw the direct deposit from.
If you have Full Service Payroll completely set up, have active direct deposit, and use a clearing account, select the clearing account you want to have the direct deposit applied to.
If you have Full Service Payroll with active direct deposit and do not use clearing accounts, this field will not show. The direct deposit will be withdrawn from the bank account listed above.

Net Pay – This will be the bank account you want to use to have payroll checks withdrawn. If you use both direct deposit and paper checks, the amount shown will only reflect the paper checks.

Map employee deduction to QBO accounts

This field only shows up if you have active employee deductions to set up in your payroll account and assigned to employees.

Choose the default liability account you want to assign to your employee deductions
If you want to map specific deductions, click +Map Employee Deduction to Account to specific liability accounts
Click +Add Row to continue adding more deductions to specific liability accounts.

Map company-paid contributions

This field only shows if you have active company-paid contributions set up in your payroll account and have assigned them to employees.

Choose the default liability account you want to assign to company contributions.
If you want to map specific deductions, click +Map Company-Paid Contribution to Account to specific liability accounts.
Click +Add Row to continue adding more company-paid contributions to specific liability accounts.

Create mapping profiles for journal entries

Here’s how to crate profiles for your journal entries. You can add multiple employees to the same profile if needed or multiple profiles to match your accounting needs. If you have selected that you need to map money to your different accounts for different employees, you will be creating profiles for each scenario.

Mapping Profile Description – Name your first profile type using a descriptive title. The name of your profile description displays in the description in your QBO journal entries.
Next, select the employees that will be assigned the profile you are creating. Only active employees who aren’t already assigned to a profile will be available for selection.
Map the wage, tax, and expense accounts for this specific profile
Continue mapping the fields to default accounts for this profile and assigned employees.
- As in the directions above, you can get as granular with your profile accounts as needed.
When you have completed mapping to your QBO accounts, you will have the option to “Save” as well as:
- Save and Duplicate – When you duplicate a profile, it makes an exact copy, including the profile name. Change the profile name to distinguish between the two profiles.
- Save and Create New – You will be able to create a new profile with nothing defaulted from the previous profile.
Note: If you select to send journal entries over as a summary, each profile will have a separate summary.