Reconciling Accounts - Payroll - Switch Prior Checks to Online Deposit?

Accounts NZ

I have recently started a new job as the office manager.

The previous office manager would record employee payments by creating "paychecks" in Reckon. However, the paychecks were not distributed, the pay was instead, automatically deposited to the employee's bank accounts by the boss.

This has created an issue when reconciling the bank statement in Reckon, because it looks like the payroll has already been cleared via checks, and it will not allow me to match the imported payroll data from the bank statement to the data from the paychecks stored in Reckon.

I am totally new to this software, so please forgive my ignorance.

Is there a way to change the previous "paychecks" to note they have been deposited online?

The boss wants to continue making the payments himself via online banking, but we need to have these payments recorded in Reckon.

Thanks so much!

Michelle

I was going to start importing my bank statements - can anyone answer this question? I don't want to create more problems by using this facility. What is the alternative to paying staff by a direct EFTransfer? Can you pay through Reckon? 

Acctd4

Hi Accounts NZ & Michelle

The term “Paycheque” is simply a type of transaction, being - in this case - a payment to an employee.  Correctly processing Pays via the Payroll feature in RA creates these.

 

“Clearing” Accounts

If the pays have already been made in 1 bulk EFT payment, you can choose to create & utilise a “Clearing Bank Account” in RA to reflect this more accurately on your bank reconciliation.

A Clearing account is a dummy bank account that you can use to pay individual transactions into/out of & use a “Write Chq” to transfer the lump sum amounts, always returning this account to $ 0.00.

 

ABA Files

Another option for actually distributing bill payments &/or wage payments is by creating & uploading an “ABA File”.  This is a specially formatted file that is compatible with your bank’s online system. 

To use ABA Files, you must have the Payee’s Bank account details completed in their RA record (Supplier or Employee)  

The correct transaction is still made first in RA – eg Paycheque, Bill Payment – then you create & save an ABA File, login to your online banking & upload this file which the bank system is able to read & “pay” as per the payee’s bank details (which are automatically included in the ABA file)

 

Bank Feeds (“Importing”)

Importing (often also referred to as “Bank Feeds” nowadays) is another method of recording data, however this is simply pulling in transactions that have already happened (eg as per your online banking transaction history) & creating “Rules” in your software to tell RA how to categorise them. 

Be mindful that a lot of errors can occur using this method if you don’t have the setup correct!

In order to set up Bank Feeds, you need to register for Reckon’s BankData which starts from $ 3 p/mth:

https://bankdata.au.reckon.com/BankData/RABankDataSignup.aspx

(Personally, I find using auto-recall along with auto-entry Memorised Transactions covers a large portion of transactions.  Bill Payments & Pays (“Paycheques”) aren’t able to be auto-filled or memorised but I’m just pedantic in terms of formatting & don’t want to import data that doesn’t match the rest of my file eg all uppercase v mixed lol )

Write a reply

Accounts NZ

Thank you so much Shaz for your detailed reply! I really appreciate your time and expert advice!

Michelle

Yes, thanks. Really appreciate it.