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“Gross Wages” would be an account in the chart of accounts. As an example, gross wages for a program director and the fund development director could be coded as follows: These two areas correspond to accounts and classes in QuickBooks. On top of keeping track of all the above payroll expense categories, expenses are required for Form 990 and audit purposes to be presented by both natural and functional areas. When we refer to payroll expenses, we are talking about all of these expenses. Payroll service fees are the fees charged by a payroll service provider for the software that allows you to run payroll and file payroll tax returns, or for the service to file returns on your behalf. See our article 10 Steps on Hiring Your Nonprofit Organization’s First Employee for more information on payroll taxes.īenefits include the employer paid portion of health insurance, contributions to retirement plans, and other benefits. Gross wages includes the Medicare, Social Security and income taxes withheld from each employee’s paycheck.Įmployer payroll taxes include matching Medicare and Social Security tax (up to the Social Security wage base), as well as other possible taxes such as state unemployment. Payroll expense is comprised of several parts: In addition to the above problems, we also see inefficiencies in entering payroll expenses. Payroll is not properly assigned to grants.
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Payroll is not broken out properly to functional areas (program, management & general and fundraising) using classes.
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