When creating a journal entry, you may see a modal/pop-up letting you know that the balance is off. This is likely the result of an incorrect account mapping and can be easily remedied.
2. Download the report in Excel and click the Report details tab.
3. Determine which items could amount to the value that the balance is off by. This may be one item or multiple items.
If the balance is more than the invoice
If your journal entry balance is more than the invoice, this is likely a result of one or more deductions being incorrectly mapped. We recommend checking what's being deducted from your invoice and only map those to the main credit account.
Money sent to a third party
Deductions that are sent to a third party (e.g. government remittances, health benefit deductions, etc.) should not be credited or debited to your clearing account as that money has already been tracked through earnings.
As an example, you pay an employee $1000 but deduct $200 in federal taxes. In this case, we’re taking $1000 from your bank, giving $800 to the employee, and remitting $200 to the government.
If we tracked both of these items to the clearing account, it would total $1200 ($1000 for salary and $200 for taxes), which is not the amount we’ve drawn from your bank.
For employee remittances and similar situations, we recommend either not using your payroll clearing account or not tracking them at all.
Money the organization keeps
In situations where your organization keeps the money from a deduction, these items should be debited—not credited—to the clearing account.
If an employee breaks company property (in our example, a laptop), they are charged a $700 laptop fee. In this case, we’re only taking $300 dollars from the bank and giving it to the employee; the other $700 you’re keeping as payment for the damaged laptop.
In order for the journal entry to balance with the invoice, the $1000 salary should be credited to the clearing account, and the $700 laptop fee should be debited to the clearing account, effectively balancing the total being withdrawn to $300.
Manual Cheque payroll instruction
To pay employees with cheques, you’ll have to use the Manual Cheque payroll instruction when running payroll. This instruction is used to reduce the amount being withdrawn from your bank, as you’ve instead opted to pay some employees with a physical cheque.
Since the Manual Cheque instruction reduces your invoice, we’ve ensured to calculate it into the balance checking feature automatically. As this amount is already calculated, it’s important that it is not mapped to the payroll clearing account, as this will automatically cause the journal entry not to balance.
If you would like to track the Manual Cheque amounts, you can do so using accounts other than your clearing account.
If the balance is less than the invoice
If your journal entry is less than the invoice, this is likely due to earnings, benefits, organization taxes, or invoice charges not being mapped.
In the Report details tab, scroll to the bottom of the list until you find items that have no allocations. Next, look for items that should be mapped (e.g. salaries, bonuses, invoice charges, etc.).
Then, return to the mapping page in the Journal entry tool and map the missing items.
Further issues