Separate payroll from general fund

[Kerry]

How can I keep our children's center staff payroll from showing up in our general fund reports? We now have an outside payroll service, but use the one checking account, general for payroll income and expense. Yet it shows up on balance sheets and messes up the bank reconciliation process.
I have the cc payroll income set up in fund 20, but then the payroll checks go through the general checking fund. Payroll service suggested setting up a liability account for the funds to go through, but how do I set that up with inc/exp?
Thank You!
Kerry

[JohnDMeyers]

Sorry, there is not enough information here to be of much help.

If you use the General Fund checking account 01-1110-000, you can assign it a Fund 20 designation 20-1110-000 to keep things in Fund 20.

Also, you can have two kinds of payroll items in Payroll, one that points to Fund 01 and one that points to Fund 20.

For example, in payroll module:
PAY ITEM: General Fund Wage
01-5120-000 general fund wage
01-1110-000 checking

PAY ITEM: Children Center Wage
20-5122-000 children center wage
20-1110-000 checking

[Kerry]

John,

Thank you for your response. I will try and clarify.

I began with using the general fund checking account, assigning childrens center payroll to fund 20-1110, with payroll wages as 20-4045 & Payroll taxes as 20-4050. However, it still showed up on my fund balance sheet, which was not acceptable to the finance committee. Nor could I reconcile the bank statement.

As we are using the outside payroll service I have not been using the payroll module, just entering pastor & church staff wages in the general fund with their corresponding chart of accounts numbers. I do not have to track the children's center payroll because they ar separate from us, so it seems unecessary to use.
Or, am I completely wrong?
I believe my problem may be in not having entered the cc payroll as an expense, so I am unable to reconcile.
The book seems quite useless-where could I get more information on reconciling?
I ceratinly would appreciate further feedback.

Kerry

[JohnDMeyers]

Someone familiar with a payroll service may have a better idea of how this works.

I assume you cut a single check to the payroll service and they distribute the money to the worker, the IRS, health provider, etc. Right?

Then, they send you a report that tells you how they distributed the money, right?

If all this is correct, then what I would (I never have used a payroll service) is to estimate what I think the report will say, and cut the check to the payroll service, and take my best guess at how it will affect the wage, tax, health, etc. and make small adjustments when the report comes back.

[Kerry]

The children's center writes a check to the church for their share of payroll, which goes into the general fund. Payroll service cuts checks, we distribute them & the service debits our general checking account of IRA, EDD, service fees.

But this does not answer my questions of how to post cc funds to keep it separate from the general church fund, where to set up in chart of accounts & the bank reconciliation process.

[JohnDMeyers]

Does the cc have its own checking account separate from the General Fund?

[Kerry]

Yes, the center has its own checking account, seperate from the church.