SchoolLeader has the ability to interface directly with the QuickBooks ProŽ Payroll software and Payroll Services. This allows you to take advantage of SchoolLeader's CheckPoint for capturing time reporting while at the same time still use a very full featured/all purpose payroll package for doing the common task of managing employee compensation.
However, before beginning the process of transferring your time data from SchoolLeader into QuickBooks, you must perform some preliminary steps both in SchoolLeader AND in QuickBooks
Setting up SchoolLeader to communicate with QuickBooks is actually a fairly easy task, however, you must ensure you perform these steps exactly otherwise you can potentially have time reporting allocation errors.
The first two steps outlined below are performed from directly from within QuickBooks, NOT SchoolLeader. Therefore, if you have never used QuickBooks before you should stop and first familiarize yourself with the QuickBooks product. Understanding QuickBooks and support for that tool are outside the scope of this manual. However, Intuit (the makers of QuickBooks) should be able to provide you with training options.
Ensure all your Employee Default settings are correctly configured in QuickBooks. To access the QuickBooks Employee Default window:
select EMPLOYEE DEFAULTS from the Employee List. The Employee List window is accessed by selecting EMPLOYEE LISTS from the main menu.
IMPORTANT: Remember, this is a QuickBooks Pro window and feature. This is NOT performed from within SchoolLeader.
Choose the EMPLOYEE DEFAULTS window from this drop down list. The following window will appear:
Setup all your base default settings needed for your employees. This involves many options, however, for SchoolLeader purposes make sure you define these three important features:
1) Set your Pay Period type (weekly, biweekly, etc.)
2) Define the default "Payroll Items" that QuickBooks should associate with each Employee. Typically you will want to setup at least the following Payroll Items in QuickBooks for each employee:
Hourly Regular Rate
Overtime Hourly Rate
Sick Hourly Rate
QuickBooks comes predefined with these four rates (among others). These are the four payroll Items that will ultimately correspond to the four "Work Hour" types in SchoolLeader.
3) Check the "Use Time Data to Create Paychecks" box. This allows QuickBooks to pay your employees based on the time data received from SchoolLeader.
Setting up these defaults is not mandatory, however it will save you a lot of manual setup after SchoolLeader creates all the Employees in the QuickBooks database. You are still going to need to review each employee's information card once they are created in QuickBooks in order to set specific salary information (i.e. Hourly wage), however, the four payroll items will have already been created for each employee at that point along with the other default settings.
When you create a new "Company" in QuickBooks, the QuickBooks system will assign a unique Company ID number which it will use whenever performing Payroll tasks.
In order for QuickBooks to permit SchoolLeader to communicate with it, QuickBooks will expect SchoolLeader to know this Company ID as well. QuickBooks provides a feature for exporting the Company ID information for external Timers such as SchoolLeader-CheckPoint.
To create a Timer Export List you must go to the Timer feature off the QuickBooks Main Menu as shown below:
IMPORTANT: Remember, this is a QuickBooks Pro window and feature. This is NOT performed from within SchoolLeader.
Choose EXPORT LISTS FOR TIMER option from the menu. The following window will appear:
Select the EXPORT TIMER LISTS Option-button and press OK. A file EXPORT box will be displayed as shown below:
Using the SAVE IN drop down box near the top of this window, choose a file destination and then type a File Name for this new Export List. The exact location and name is not important, however, for clarity sake it is recommended that you place this file into the SchoolLeader EXTRACTS folder with a name of COMPANY ID as illustrated above.
At this point you have defined your Employee Defaults in QuickBooks and created an Export Timer List for use by SchoolLeader. Now it's time to close QuickBooks and open the SchoolLeader FrontDesk Manager so you can configure the Payroll Interface settings.
Select Payroll Interface Settings from the Employee main menu to open the window shown below:
This window will setup two key elements of the Interface to allow SchoolLeader to work with your QuickBooks Payroll software.
QuickBooks Company Info
1) The QuickBooks Company Info section consists of the Company Name and Company ID. This information is obtained from the QuickBooks Export Timer List that was created in STEP 2. In order to "load" this information to SchoolLeader select the LINK TO QB button. The window shown below will then be displayed. Select the same file that was created in Step 2 and press the OPEN button. The window will disappear and the new QuickBooks Company ID and Name will be displayed in the SchoolLeader Payroll Interface window. You have successfully imported the Company ID!
2) The QuickBooks Payroll Items are the second element to define. These QuickBooks Payroll Items correspond to the four Work Types used in SchoolLeader. These four Work Types are as follows:
- Regular Work Hours
- OT Work Hours
- Sick Hours
- Vacation Hours
Using the four boxes provided, type in the name of the Payroll Item in QuickBooks that you want SchoolLeader to link in QuickBooks. SchoolLeader comes predefined with the Standard QuickBooks Names but you may opt to change them.
Be careful. The Payroll Item names must be entered exactly as they are spelled in QuickBooks otherwise the link will not work.
Once this information is defined you are finished setting up all the Payroll Interface Settings. Press the OK button to exit the window.
You're now ready to start transferring time reporting data to QuickBooks. If you are using QuickBooks Payroll for the first time, and have NOT entered the names of the employees into QuickBooks, the SchoolLeader upload process will create the Employee entries automatically for you. However, if the Employee Names are already entered in QuickBooks, ensure that all the names are spelled the same as they are in SchoolLeader. If the names are spelled slightly different (even middle initials), then QuickBooks will think it is a new employee and will add them to the QuickBooks Payroll.
Once you are sure you have all the previously entered Employee Names synchronized with SchoolLeader then you are ready to create your Time Report file. This subject is covered in the next topic titled: Create QuickBooks Time Reporting File.