Intuit — QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll for Accountants

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From the Sept. 2008 Review of Professional Payroll Systems

As its name implies, Intuit’s QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll for Accountants is designed for professionals providing payroll services to multiple clients and who use QuickBooks: Professional Edition in their practice for write-up and other client services. Enhanced Payroll is an add-on module to the latter that integrates with client GL, payables and other functions. It supports up to 50 employer clients with any number of employees on the base license and can be used for either live or after-the-fact payroll functions. Direct deposit is available at $0.99 per deposit, and users can electronically file and pay federal and state payroll taxes for free. The program includes benefits management, net-to-gross calculations and supports workers’ compensation tracking. Enhanced Payroll for Accountants costs $299 per year, including tax rate updates.

DATA ENTRY & KEY FEATURES – 5 Stars
Just like the primary QuickBooks program, Enhanced Payroll for Accountants includes generous assistive features including guided setup wizards and tools that ease the initial configuration of employer and employee data, including setting up bank accounts, transferring departmental information, creating pay rates and deductions, and ensuring that appropriate tax rates are applied based on employee location. Of course, most of the employer data will already exist in QuickBooks, so no entry will be necessary since the Payroll module fully integrates with the accounting system and has access to all of this information. After initial setup, most tasking involves employee time entry and management functions, which are easily accessible from the icon toolbar across the top of the main QuickBooks interface window, or from the workflow diagram housed in the main window of the program.

Selection lists for client businesses and their employees are exceptional, providing a highly detailed collection of information and providing multiple sorting, searching and filtering functions on a tabbed list. Summary historical paycheck data is instantly viewable from the employee list, with drilldown access to individual checks and details. From employee detail screens, users can also access or edit employee wages, deductions, tax settings and other information. Many data-entry screens throughout the program also offer selection lists, calendars and other assistive features that speed information entry. Users can quickly e-mail statements to employees from this window, and employee data screens can be customized to include additional data fields. Enhanced Payroll for Accountants can accommodate an unlimited number of pay types per employee, whether salaried, hourly, commissioned, tipped or other type of worker. Additionally, any number of voluntary and involuntary deductions can be applied to employee wages, and any pay frequency can be used. The system also supports benefits plans, as well as tracking of accrual-based time off for vacation and sick leave. Payroll groups can be set up for departmentalized reporting and posting.

The main Payroll Center provides an overview of a business’ activities, with quick access to employees, transactions, reports, running payroll and paying liabilities, as well as printing or electronically filing tax forms. Time data is entered on an individual employee basis either on a weekly timesheet or a task-specific sheet, with the program automatically applying and calculating deductions and taxes in real-time. During forms preparation, Enhanced Payroll automatically fills in preparer information, signature and third-party designee.

REPORTING CAPABILITIES – 5 Stars
The reporting options in QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll for Accountants include client-ready output that helps explain payroll data. These reports include payroll activity by employee, payroll expense analysis and payroll tax reports. Additionally, the system provides managerial reports, such as reconciliations, departmental, workers’ comp class codes, wages, taxes and other options. Reports can be edited in Microsoft Word or saved as PDFs. All state and federal forms are automatically generated by the program, including forms 940, 940-EZ, 941 Schedule B, 943, 944, 945, W-2, W-3, 1099-MISC and 1096. Checks and reports can be printed to plain or preformatted stock.

INTEGRATION/IMPORT & EXPORT – 4.5 Stars
Enhanced Payroll for Accountants is essentially a native part of the QuickBooks system that simply needs to be turned on after subscribing to it, which then enables the full integration between the payroll functions, employee management tools, GL, payables and other parts of the accounting system. The system can export most payroll data into spreadsheet format, as well reports to PDF. Integration with Outlook is available for e-mailing from within the program.

RELATIVE VALUE – 4.5 Stars
Accounting professionals who already use QuickBooks Professional and who are considering adding payroll services to their offerings will find Enhanced Payroll for Accountants an easy-to-use system that offers extensive payroll management options, especially for clients with smaller and less diverse employee bases. While the program has the capabilities of larger systems, it is best suited to mid-sized clients and smaller since most time data entry is input one employee at a time. The total integration of the module with the QuickBooks system is exceptional, automatically handling transaction posting and account information while greatly streamlining many workflow processes.

2008 Overall Rating: 5 Stars