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Create and finalise a pay run in QuickBooks Online Advanced and Bureau Payroll

by Intuit•3• Updated 1 week ago

Once you’re all set up and you've added your employees in QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll, learn how to set up and run your payroll. This article will cover how to:

Before you begin

Important: Pay runs in Advanced Payroll do not automatically pay employees. It is your responsibility to manually pay your employees outside of QuickBooks.


Step 1: Set up a new pay run

  1. Go to Payroll.
  2. Select the Pay Runs tab.
  3. Select New Pay Run.
  4. Select the pay schedule and set the pay period end date.
  5. Choose the date on which the pay run will be paid to employees.
  6. Select Manually add employees to this pay run if you want to create an ad hoc pay run and only include a specific group of employees. All employees linked to the chosen pay schedule will be added to the pay run.
  7. Select Create a pay run with empty pays if you'd like to override any default payment amounts and have 0 payments in this pay run.
  8. Select Create. This may take a few moments depending on the size of your pay run.

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Step 2: Review and adjust employee details

  1. On the pay run details page, review the list of employees included in the pay run.
  2. You can make any necessary adjustments to employee details, such as hours worked, overtime or deductions.
  3. To edit an employee's details, select their name.
  4. Once you've reviewed and adjusted all employee details, select Finalise Pay Run.

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Step 3: Finalise the pay run

Once you're ready, submit your real-time information to HMRC manually or automatically. QuickBooks will prompt you before finalising the pay run.

  1. Set the payment date for paying employees.
  2. Choose when to make payslips accessible to employees.
  3. Decide if and when to send payslip notifications.
  4. Select how and when to submit pension information to your pension provider.
  5. If you want these settings to apply to future pay runs, check the option to save them.
  6. Select Finalise.
  1. Go to Payroll and select the Pay Runs tab.
  2. Open the pay run you wish to finalise.
  3. Select Finalise Pay Run.
  4. Set the Date Paid.
  5. Next to Publish payslips, select the pencil icon and choose one of the following:
    • Do not make payslips available until manually published – Payslips remain private until you select Publish payslips.
    • Make payslips available now – Employees can access their payslips immediately.
    • To schedule a future publishing date, select the date and time.
  6. Choose the appropriate HMRC and pension submission options.
  7. If you want these settings to apply to future pay runs, check the option to save them.
  8. Select Finalise.

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Edit finalised pay run

If you need to make changes to a pay run or one from a previous tax year, you can unlock it. Unlocking the pay run will allow you to edit, update and recalculate the values associated with the pay run.

However, once you've submitted pension information to HMRC through PensionSync, you won't be able to unlock or make any changes to that pay run. But don't worry, you can always make any necessary adjustments in the next pay period. 


What's next?

For more in-depth guidance, check out our additional support articles:

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