What the view should show
Total payroll cost for the month: gross wages, employer taxes and benefits. Tax liabilities owed and the date each is due. Headcount and hours by department or job if you track them. Contractor payments listed separately from employee pay.
Make the two systems agree
Payroll software records what you paid and withheld. Your books record the same amounts as expenses and liabilities. Each month the wages, taxes withheld and employer taxes in the payroll reports should match the entries in your accounting software. A difference is a signal to investigate, such as a missed tax payment or a journal entry posted twice.
Employees and contractors are different
Employees run through payroll, with withholding and filings. Contractors are paid separately, usually without withholding, and reported on a 1099 at year end. Putting contractors through payroll or employees through accounts payable creates tax problems, so the dashboard keeps the two lists apart. The classification itself is a question for a tax professional or attorney.
Cost per job or per location
If you can assign labor to a job, a class or a location, the dashboard can show profit by line of business, which payroll totals alone hide. This only works if the time is coded when it is entered.
State and local items
Payroll tax rules, rates and filing dates vary by state and change. We do not set them from memory. We reconcile what your payroll provider filed with what the books show and flag anything that looks off for your payroll provider or tax professional.
Common questions
Can you run payroll for me?
We reconcile and report on payroll. Payroll processing is done by your payroll software or provider, and we work with the one you use.
Why does my payroll report not match my books?
Common causes are timing differences, a tax payment not recorded, or a bonus or reimbursement entered differently in each system. A monthly reconciliation finds them.
This page is general information, not tax or legal advice. Software plans and features change, so confirm current details with the provider. MCC Solutions is independent and not affiliated with the software companies named here.