Once your payroll register is correct and you have created payroll journal entries, the general journal will reflect liabilities owed to vendors, such as your insurance providers, the IRS, state retirement agencies, etc. You will pay these liabilities directly from the Payroll Runs page instead of going through Accounts Payable.
To view and pay liabilities, go to Financials Main > Payroll > Payroll Runs. When you click the down arrow next to a payroll run with the status Journal Entries Created or ACH/Paychecks Sent, you can select Liabilities.
Balances
Single payment
Mass pay
Mass skip
Balances
The Payroll Liabilities page shows each payroll vendor who had a non-zero value of payroll items on the payroll run or who have a non-zero previous balance. Each vendor has the following columns of data:
Current Liabilities: This value is calculated by summing up the payroll items on the selected run that are associated with each vendor. For example, if there are 15 employees on the run, and all 15 pay Medicare taxes, the Medicare vendor number should be the sum of all 30 payroll items (1 withholding + 1 employer taxes for each employee).
Previous Balance: This value is calculated from previous journal entries. It looks for entries that:
- Have the vendor listed as the Payee
- Are dated on or before the paycheck date
- Debit or credit a liability account that has already been used on a payroll item associated with the vendor
Typically, this should be the same value as the previous run’s Balance, but it is possible to create journal entries that change this value.
If the Previous Balance is $0.00 for all vendors, then this column will be hidden.
Payments: The total dollar amount of payments that made by clicking Pay Liability on this run.
Balance: This is calculated as [Current Liabilities] + [Previous Balance] - [Payments]. Before payments are made, this value should ideally equal exactly what you owe to each vendor.
Single payment
To make a single payment, click Pay Liability next to the vendor name. You will be asked to fill out the following information:
- Date: The date that the transaction will be posted to the General Journal and printed on the check, if applicable.
- Financial Institution Account: The bank account whose assets will be reduced to pay the vendor.
- Payment type: Check or EFT. Checks require a check number. Numbers for EFTs are optional.
The default among will be the total balance, including this payroll run and any previously unpaid payroll runs for this vendor. To make a partial payment, check Use Custom Amount and override the amounts for each liability account.
NOTE: It is very important that you always record the payment that comes out of your bank account accurately. If you record an incorrect amount, you will encounter trouble with bank reconciliation, payroll reports, future liability payments, and account balances. If the amount predicted by SchoolInsight Financials does not match what you’re expecting to pay, see Unexpected payroll liability amounts.
Mass pay
If you need to pay several liabilities, you can use the Mass Pay button at the bottom. This process will create separate transactions for each vendor, but more quickly.
There are three main ways that this differs from the single payment page:
- You can select multiple vendors.
- You enter a starting number for the first vendor. Subsequent vendors will be paid with sequential numbers.
- The payment amount must be the same as the balance; you cannot use a custom amount.
Mass skip
After you have made all required payments for the pay period, you may be left with multiple vendors you don’t want to pay yet. This is very common for districts who pay semi-monthly and bi-weekly but have certain vendors who are only paid once a month.
To skip all remaining vendors, use the Mass Skip button at the bottom of the page. All vendors with no payment will be selected by default, although you may choose to uncheck some.