Mapping GL Accounts

Once you have connected a journal service and imported your chart of accounts, you can map those accounts to different payroll transaction types.

The chart of accounts page consists of 2 sections:

• Primary accounts
  These accounts are required and are the accounts that will be used if no location specific accounts are mapped.
  
  
• Location specific accounts
  These accounts are used to override the primary accounts for transactions at a given location.
  

Mapping accounts to transaction types

Journals are produced based on the GL account that is mapped to the transaction type. The transactions are created based on a transaction hierarchy. The hierarchy is defined as follows:

Top Level: 
Default Account Mappings

Second Level:
Pay Category Mappings, Deduction Category Mappings, Expense Category Mappings

Third Level:
Location specific default account mappings

Fourth Level:
Location specific Pay Category Mappings, Deduction Category Mappings, Expense Category Mappings

Transactions are matched to the GL account from the lowest level to the highest level.

Default transaction types

The following transaction types are mapped at the default level:

Payment Account: This account is often called the "payroll clearing" account and is used to reconcile the net payment amount of the payroll to the transaction from your bank account.

Wages Expense Account: This account is used to record the gross wages expense for the pay run.

Default Payroll Liability Account: The account specified here will be where all the deductions get journaled if there is no specific liability account set up. 

PAYG Liability Account: Sometimes called the PAYE clearing account, this account will track your PAYG liability transactions.

Superannuation Expense Account: This account is used to track your superannuation expense transactions.

Superannuation Liability Account: Sometimes called a superannuation clearing account, this account will track your superannuation liability transactions.

Employee Expenses Account: This account is used to record any employee expenses processed within the pay run. Expenses are not deemed part of employee wages. 

Employer Liability Expense Account: This account is used to record any employer liabilities recorded against an employee within the pay run.  

Employer Liability Account: This account will keep track of your general employer liability transactions.

N.B. there won't be an option to map Employee Liability Expense or Employer Liability Accounts if you haven't created any Categories for these types of transactions (under the pay run settings heading on the payroll dashboard)

NOTE:  Some accounting software i.e. QBO doesn't allow us to write transactions to bank accounts directly so the recommended way is use a "clearing" account and then reconcile the bank transaction against the clearing transaction in the journals.

Pay category transaction accounts

Pay category transaction accounts are used to allocate specific wage expenses to different GL accounts. For example, you may want to track bonuses, leave paid or allowances paid to different GL accounts. To do this, you would map a different GL account for the specific pay category.

If you don't specify a pay category transaction account, the default Wages Expense Account will be used.

Deduction category transaction accounts

Deduction category transaction accounts are used to allocate specific deductions to different GL accounts. If you don't specify a deduction account, the Default Payroll Liability Account will be used by default.

Expense category transaction accounts

Expense category transaction accounts are used to allocate specific expenses to different GL accounts. If you don't specify an expense account, the transactions will be posted to the Employee Expenses Account by default.

Employer liability category transaction accounts

Employer liability category transaction accounts are used to allocate specific employer liabilities to different GL accounts. If you don't specify a liability account, the transactions will be posted to the Employer Liability Account by default. Additionally, if you don't specify an expense account, the transactions will be posted to the Employer Liability Expense Account by default.

Splitting by location
When you map your default GL accounts, you'll notice that there is an option to "Split by location". This allows you to write a transaction line per location to the journal for the same account. This is particularly useful if you're using locations, classes or tracking categories in your specified accounting package

Location Specific Accounts

If you want to split your GL by location and allocate the transactions to a different GL account, you can define location specific accounts. These accounts will work in exactly the same way as the primary accounts, however they will only apply to the location they are specified for.

Exporting the Chart of Accounts

For users with multiple sets of location specific accounts, if they need to change a particular account, it can be difficult to find all the places that an account is used.

The 'Export Configuration' feature adds an excel spreadsheet export so that the user can see which accounts are used across the whole Chart of Accounts.