Payroll
How payroll transactions flow into Kick and what to do if you run payroll outside of Gusto.
Payroll is one of the more complex areas of bookkeeping because a single payroll run involves multiple expense types - wages, taxes, benefits, and contractor payments - that all need to land in the right places in your books.
If you use Gusto
Kick has a direct integration with Gusto. When you run payroll, Kick pulls in each payroll run as a single transaction that's automatically split into individual line items and mapped to the right accounts:
Wages and salaries - maps to your salaries and wages account
Employer payroll taxes - maps to your payroll taxes account
Employee benefits - maps to your benefits account
Retirement contributions - maps to your retirement benefits account
Contractor payments - maps to your contract labor account
This happens automatically - you don't need to manually categorize each component.
If you use Gusto departments, those sync into Kick as Classes so you can see payroll broken out by team or department in your reports.
Reconciling benefits and retirement: Most payroll items reconcile automatically. Benefits and retirement contributions, because they're paid out to separate providers on their own schedule, need a manual reconciliation step. You or your accountant can handle this on Transactions: select the payroll transactions, click Actions, and choose Reconcile Gusto.
If you use a different payroll provider
If your payroll runs through ADP, Paychex, Rippling, QuickBooks Payroll, or any other provider, the transactions will sync from your bank account as a lump sum. They won't be automatically split.
In this case, the standard approach is:
Categorize the payment to a payroll clearing account (a temporary holding account for payroll until it's split into wages, taxes, and benefits)
Download the payroll journal report from your provider, which breaks the lump sum into wages, taxes, and benefits. Send it to your accountant if you work with one, or keep it open for the next step
You or your accountant create a journal entry that reclassifies the payment into the correct expense accounts, using the report as the breakdown
This is typically done at the end of each quarter or tax year. If you run payroll frequently and want it reflected accurately in real time, set the reclassification up as a recurring journal entry so the split posts on a schedule.
Payroll and tax prep
Payroll reconciliation is one of the more common reasons business owners bring in a bookkeeping partner at year-end. Each tax year requires its own reconciliation, and it involves matching payroll records to bank transactions and tax filings.
If you have payroll history that hasn't been reconciled, address this before generating your Tax Package.
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