Payroll Items (Benefits & Deductions) is the list of everything added to pay or taken off it that SeroBooks does not work out by itself: a taxable benefit such as employer-paid group life insurance or a cash allowance, and voluntary or court-ordered deductions such as union dues, an RRSP through payroll, or a garnishment. You define each item once, with its tax treatment, and then assign it to the employees it applies to.
Statutory deductions (income tax, CPP or QPP, EI, QPIP, and US federal and state withholding, Social Security and Medicare) are calculated automatically from each employee's setup. You do not create items for them.
Open it
- Employees ▸ Payroll Items (Benefits & Deductions)
The screen is titled Benefits & deductions, with the number defined as its subtitle. Its note states the rule most people get wrong: CPP applies to a benefit in kind and EI does not, so employer-paid insurance is taxable and pensionable but not insurable, while a cash allowance is all three.
The list
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Name | The name shown on pay stubs. |
| Code | The short code. |
| Kind | deduction, or benefit followed by · cash or · in kind. |
| Order | The order it is taken in. Under 100 means legally mandatory (such as a garnishment); these come out before voluntary deductions. The default is 500. |
| Default | The default percentage of gross, or the default amount. |
| Tax treatment | Which of these apply: pre-tax, CPP, EI, not federal, not provincial. |
| Slip | The T4 box (and RL-1 box) it is reported in, for example T4 40. |
The table has the usual Search this list…, sorting, Filters and saved views, Columns, Email and Export controls.
If any benefit is marked insurable but is not paid in cash, a red banner names it: this inflates every EI figure for the year and shows up at the PIER review in February. Correct the item's flags before the next pay run.
Define a benefit or deduction
- Press Define one. The Define a benefit or deduction window opens.
- Optionally press one of the preset buttons to fill in the flags for a common item. A short line under the presets explains the treatment it chose.
- Check or change the fields below.
- Press Save, or Cancel to close without saving.
The presets
| Preset | What it sets | Why |
|---|---|---|
| RRSP contribution | Deduction, before income tax | Comes off before income tax, and does not reduce CPP or EI. |
| Union dues | Deduction, T4 box 44 | Taken after tax and reported in box 44. |
| Group life insurance (employer paid) | Benefit, not cash, pensionable, not insurable, T4 box 40 | The classic benefit in kind: taxable and pensionable but not insurable. |
| Taxable cash allowance | Benefit, paid in cash, pensionable, insurable, T4 box 40 | Paid in cash, so unlike a benefit in kind it is insurable. |
| Garnishment / support order | Deduction, order 50 | Under 100, so it is treated as legally mandatory and comes out before voluntary deductions. |
A preset is a starting point. Every flag stays editable, and pressing a different preset resets the flags it does not mention.
Fields
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Name (required) | A name people will recognise on a pay stub. |
| Code (required) | Short, no spaces. SeroBooks lower-cases it and replaces spaces with underscores. Saving a code that already exists updates that item. |
| Kind | Taken off pay (a deduction) or Added to pay or income (a benefit). |
| Charged as | Fixed amount or % of gross pay. Union dues are often a percentage; parking is an amount. |
| Default amount or Default rate (% of gross) | The usual amount, or the usual percentage (type 1.5 for 1.5%). You can set a different figure for each employee when you assign it. |
| Order | The order it is taken in. Under 100 means mandatory. |
| Paid in cash | Tick for a cash benefit. Cash earnings are EI earnings. |
| Pensionable (CPP) | Tick if CPP (or QPP) applies. |
| Insurable (EI) | Tick only if the benefit is paid in cash. If you tick it for a benefit that is not paid in cash, the window warns you in amber. |
| Before income tax | Tick for a deduction that reduces taxable income, such as an RRSP contribution. It still does not reduce CPP or EI. |
| T4 box | The T4 box the amount is reported in, for example 40 or 44. |
If Name or Code is empty, SeroBooks says It needs a short code and a name people will recognise on a pay stub.
Give an item to an employee
Items are assigned on each employee's page, not here:
- Open Employees ▸ Employee Centre and open the employee.
- On the Benefits and deductions card, press Assign.
- Choose the item in What, enter the percentage or the amount each pay period, the From date, and optionally Most in a year, Total to collect, then stop and Reference.
- Press Assign.
To stop an item, double-click it on the employee's page and enter the last day it applies. Items are ended by date, never deleted. See Employee Centre.
What happens in a pay run
- A deduction is taken in Order, lowest first. If an employee's net pay is not enough to take everything, SeroBooks records the amount it could not take and shows it on the pay run as a shortfall, with a warning when a legally mandatory deduction (order under 100) was short. See Pay Employees.
- A benefit in kind is added to gross so that tax, and CPP where it applies, are withheld on it, and then taken back out of the wage expense when the run posts, because it was never cash. Its cost is already in your books where you incurred it (for example insurance or vehicle expense).
- A voluntary deduction is owed to someone other than a government (a union, an RRSP provider, a court). When the run posts, it is credited to that item's own liability account, not to the payroll remittance accounts, so each balance can be reconciled against what you actually sent.
Permissions
Defining an item needs the Define a Benefit or Deduction permission under Payroll ▸ Benefits & Deductions. Without it, SeroBooks asks someone whose role has it to approve.
The Payroll Item List report
Reports ▸ Employees & Payroll ▸ Payroll Item List lists every payroll item: statutory items, additions and deductions. See Employees & Payroll reports.