SeroBooks calculates pay for your employees, withholds the statutory deductions, works out the employer's own contributions, posts the whole pay run to the ledger, tells you when the withheld money is due to the government, and builds the year-end slips. This article explains how the pieces fit together and which screen does what. Start here if you have never run payroll in SeroBooks.
Is payroll available in my company?
Payroll is its own part of SeroBooks, sold with the plans that include it. When your plan includes payroll and your role is allowed to see it, the Employees menu appears on the menu bar and the Home Page shows an Employees band. If you do not see the Employees menu, either your plan does not include payroll or your role has payroll switched off; see Your subscription and plan and Roles and permissions explained.
Payroll works for Canadian and United States companies. The screens change their wording to match your company's country (province or state, TD1 or W-4, T4 or W-2, CRA or IRS). Three screens exist only for Canadian companies because the documents they deal with are Canadian: PIER Review, Records of Employment and Employer Levies. A US company does not see them.
The Employees menu
| Menu item | What it opens | Use it to |
|---|---|---|
| Employee Centre | The list of people on the payroll | Add people to the payroll and open each person's page (SIN, bank details, benefits and deductions, balances). See Employee Centre. |
| Pay Employees | Pay runs | Open a pay period, calculate, approve, post and mark it paid. See Pay Employees. |
| Timesheets | Hours from the time clock | Review clocked hours and fix missing punches before a pay run uses them. See Timesheets. |
| Payroll Items (Benefits & Deductions) | The list of benefits and deductions | Define a company car benefit, union dues, an RRSP deduction, a garnishment. See Payroll Items. |
| Vacation & Banked Time | Balances | See vacation pay owed and banked overtime hours for everyone. See Vacation and banked time. |
| Pay Payroll Liabilities | Remittances | See each remitting period, when it is due, and record that you paid it. See Pay Payroll Liabilities. |
| Employer Levies | Workers' compensation and employer health tax | Enter your WCB rate and EHT registration by province. Canada only. See Employer Levies. |
| Year-End Slips | T4 slips (W-2 in the US) | Review the boxes, print slips and build the electronic return. See Year-End Slips. |
| Records of Employment | ROEs | Record ROEs when employment ends. Canada only. See Records of Employment. |
| PIER Review | CPP and EI check | Find CPP and EI shortfalls before CRA does. Canada only. See PIER Review. |
| Payroll Setup | Employer account | Enter your payroll program account, legal name and remitter type, and look up statutory holidays. See Payroll Setup. |
The Home Page Employees band has the same starting points: Employee Centre, Enter Time (Timesheets), Pay Employees, Pay Liabilities (remittances) and Payroll Setup.
Setting up payroll, in order
- Map the payroll accounts. Open Company ▸ Accounting Setup and make sure the five payroll accounts are mapped: wages and salaries, employer payroll contributions, net pay owed to employees (payroll clearing), payroll remittances payable to CRA (or the IRS), and payroll remittances payable to the province or state. SeroBooks can fill them in one step with suggested accounts. A pay run cannot be posted until all five are mapped. See Accounting Setup.
- Enter the employer account. Open Employees ▸ Payroll Setup and enter your CRA payroll program account (for example 123456789RP0001), your legal name and the remitter type CRA assigned you. See Payroll Setup.
- Enter levy rates (Canada). If you pay workers' compensation or employer health tax, enter the rate and account numbers per province under Employees ▸ Employer Levies.
- Define benefits and deductions, if you have any, under Employees ▸ Payroll Items (Benefits & Deductions).
- Add each employee under Employees ▸ Employee Centre ▸ Add someone: province of employment, pay frequency, salary or hourly rate, first day, date of birth, and their TD1 (or W-4) figures. Then open each person to add their SIN and bank details. See Add or edit an employee.
- Decide where hours come from. Hourly staff either have hours typed into each pay run or take them from the time clock. To use the clock, turn on Pay from the time clock in Clock rules (on the Timesheets screen) and switch on Hours come from the time clock for each employee it applies to. See Timesheets.
Paying people: the life of a pay run
A pay run moves through these statuses. Each step is a separate button and a separate permission, so you can let a bookkeeper calculate while an accountant approves and the owner posts.
| Status | What it means | What you can do next |
|---|---|---|
| draft | The period is open; nothing is calculated yet. | Calculate |
| calculated | Every employee's pay has been worked out. Nothing outside the run has changed. | Calculate again as often as you like, or Approve |
| approved | The pay has been added to each employee's year to date. It can no longer be recalculated. | Post to ledger, or Reverse |
| posted | The pay run is in the ledger. | Mark paid when the money has left the bank, or Reverse |
| paid | Net pay has been cleared out of the liability into the bank account. | Reverse |
| reversed | The run has been taken back out of year to date and out of the ledger. | Re-issue corrected |
See Pay Employees for every button and dialog.
What a pay run records in the books
When you post a pay run, SeroBooks writes one balanced journal dated on the run's payment date:
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Wages and salaries | Gross pay | Benefits in kind (they were never cash, and are already expensed where they were incurred) |
| Employer payroll contributions | The employer's own CPP, EI (and QPP, QPIP, or US equivalents) and any employer share of a voluntary item | |
| Net pay owed to employees (payroll clearing) | Net pay | |
| Payroll remittances payable to CRA / IRS | Everything owed to the federal authority: income tax withheld, employee and employer CPP and EI | |
| Payroll remittances payable (provincial or state) | Everything owed to a province or state that collects its own (Quebec, or a US state) | |
| The liability account of each voluntary deduction | Union dues, RRSP contributions, garnishments and other amounts owed to someone other than a government |
Outside Quebec, provincial income tax is collected by CRA on the same remittance as federal tax, so it is credited to the CRA liability, not the provincial one.
When you press Mark paid, SeroBooks debits net pay owed to employees and credits the bank account payroll is paid from, dated the day you record it.
Remitting and year end
- Remittances. SeroBooks builds your remitting periods from the remitter type CRA assigned you, with the due date of each, and adds up the withheld amounts plus the employer's share for each period. You record the payment on the Remittances screen. See Pay Payroll Liabilities.
- PIER Review. Before year end, check that the CPP and EI withheld matches what the year's earnings required. See PIER Review.
- Year-end slips. In January and February, review the T4 boxes, print the slips and build the XML return you upload to CRA. See Year-End Slips.
- Records of Employment. When somebody leaves, record their last day and file the ROE. See Records of Employment.
The payment date decides the tax year
Every pay run has a Payment date as well as a period. The payment date is the day the money reaches the employee, and it decides which tax year the pay belongs to and which published rates apply. Pay earned in December and paid in January is taxed in January and appears on the next year's T4. Figures are stored when calculated, so a run looked at years later shows exactly what was paid.
Payroll reports
The Report Centre has an Employees & Payroll group: Payroll Summary by Employee, Payroll Register, Payroll Remittance History, Payroll Item List and Employee Contact List. See Employees & Payroll reports.
When pay runs cannot be opened yet
If the Pay Employees screen shows a banner reading No tax year is loaded or The tax year has not been checked, the payroll tax tables for the current year are not yet ready for your company. SeroBooks will not produce a deduction it cannot trace to the government's own tables, so Open a pay period stays disabled until they are. Contact SeroBooks support; the banner may show a line of technical text that tells support exactly what to do.