Local tax law must be considered when setting up accounts. Because there are many different ways payroll taxes are handled throughout the world, this section presents a very simple structure. From this, you should be able to adapt your particular payroll deductions setup.
Assume that you must pay 2 taxes, Tax1 and Tax2 and that each has an employee contributed and an employer contributed component.
The employee's salary and these two taxes are expense accounts. The tax components are liability accounts. The tax liability accounts are where you accumulate the taxes withheld for all of your employees. The taxes are later paid to the appropriate government agency.
Simple Payroll Account Layout:
-Assets
-Checking
-Liabilities
-Tax1 (short term "storage" account)
-Tax2 (short term "storage" account)
-Expenses
-Salaries
-Tax1
-Tax2
 | Note |
|---|---|
Resist the temptation to create per-employee sub-accounts to track individual salaries. Creating a sub-account for each employee leads to unmanageably large lists of accounts. Imagine the account structure after a few years of employees coming and going. It is much simpler to keep all of your employees' payroll records within a single account (Expenses:Salaries for example) and use reports to view per-employee information. | |