User Support Forum

We file quarterly federal taxes. We have payroll set up properly and are able to print quarterly reports. However, when it comes to actually printing a check to make the payment, I'm not sure how to post. Where do I take the funds from?

Usually, the Federal Withholding in Payroll makes this entry:
DB 01-1110-000 checking
CR 01-2130-000 Fed W/H

When you pay the money from Accounts Payable, it would look like this:
CR 01-1110-000 checking
DB 01-2130-000 Fed W/H

The Fed W/H debits the checking the account for the following reason:

In Payroll, the total employee paycheck amount is a credit to the checking account.
Some of that money, which is paid to the employee, doesn't go to the employee.

So, the Fed W/H pay item puts money back into the checking account (debit) to be paid later to a different Vendor.

But, that money is a subset of the total money paid to the employee. (Notice the math lingo. I was a high school math teacher, not an accountant).

So how do I make the payment to the IRS without showing a double entry if it's already taken out when payroll is run?

It's the mirror image in payroll.

Notice the DB and CR are switched when you enter the information in Accounts Payable.

The net result is zero, not 2x.