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The most important fact about accounting payroll is that it involves financial statements and not
filing tax returns. Accounting payroll requires a detailed description of fringe benefits and
payroll for employees which is necessary in the management of employee time. Employer paid
benefits, payroll taxes and costs as well as wages, salaries, bonuses and commissions are only a
few of the items included on a business¶s balance sheet and income statement. If you only have a
couple of employees, using a general ledger will be sufficient to record payroll information, but
if you have more than just 1 or 2 employees or expect to have many more in the future,
automating your payroll system can make accounting payroll simple and efficient.

When keeping track of payroll using journals, there are two journals that are used in this system.
A Payroll Journal records payroll that is due to be paid to employees. When it is time to disburse
payments, a Payroll Disbursement Journal records amounts when payroll is finally paid to
employees. Journals must be kept with detailed information on hours worked, amounts to be
paid, dates and to which employees. Automating this process makes data entry very simple, and
any errors can be caught early rather than searching paper journals to catch mistakes.

Computerized accounting payroll allows for the printing of hard copy journals as well as payroll
ledgers and calculates employee taxes to be withheld automatically with a few simple settings.
Paying attention to detail is crucially important, as errors can cause problems for the accounting
of your business. Keep individual files for your employees with their time and payroll
information in them to make pulling information later an easy task. Be sure to keep a list of your
employees and employee numbers handy if you choose to list employees by their number in your
accounting payroll.

Employee time sheets are also called payroll source documents, and are required for audit use
when accounting payroll. These documents should be put into a payroll document source folder
for easy access when requested. The Labor Department is one organization that requests these
payroll source documents on an audit basis. It is important to keep documents well organized,
whether they are in paper form or computer form. Use software for your accounting payroll that
will allow you to customize your fields to accommodate your particular needs, as well as
software that will make it easy for you to transfer your information to other accounting
programs.