Required Accounts in Quickbooks

The three (3) following account types are required to be set up in Quickbooks for payroll to post properly:

• 
  
  • A Bank Account for the checks to post to -- The Checking Account cannot be a sub-account.

• 
  
  • Liability Accounts to track the amount due for items in payroll, such as taxes.

• 
  
  • Expense Accounts to track the wages and expenses incurred by the company for payroll.

When creating the liability and expense accounts you can set up one account for each, such as Payroll Liability or Payroll Expense, or, you can create accounts for the tax type, such as Payroll 941 Liability or Payroll 941 Expense. 

While you can use sub accounts it is not recommended to use more than one level of sub accounts (sub accounts of sub accounts). Having more that one level of sub accounts for payroll may cause the incorrect posting of payroll.