Accruing Payroll at Month End

Learn how to expense payroll every pay period and accrue at the end of the month with Aspire!

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Written by Aspire Software
Updated over a week ago

Table of Contents


Purpose

Accrue/Expense gross direct labor for days worked in one month but paid the following month.

If you are expensing payroll every pay period and want to accrue payroll at month end, you have two options: Accruing Payroll from your Payroll System or Accruing Payroll from Aspire.


Accruing Payroll from your Payroll System

Gather the information for the days worked in one month but paid in another month from your payroll system and record the journal entry as needed.


Accruing Payroll from Aspire

Gather the information for the days worked in one month but paid in another month from Aspire and record the journal entry as needed.

Follow these steps:

The first thing to do is to obtain your base labor cost and your overtime labor cost.

  • Navigate to the Reporting module and select the End of Month report.

  • Use the Labor tab and change the date to Custom-Between

  • Select the date range to the month you will be accruing.

  • The total Gross Labor on the Labor tab is the sum of Base Labor Costs and Overtime Labor Cost.

Record the following and sum to be used later:

  • Base Labor Costs $ ____________

  • Overtime Labor Cost $ ____________

  • Total $ ____________

Create an Hours Pivot Report using the following settings:

Report Name

Payroll Pivot Report for Monthly Accrual

Filter Fields

Work Date Year, Work Date Month, Work Date, Pay Schedule

Display Fields

Base Cost. OT Premium, Total Labor Cost No Burden

Row Fields

Division, Service Name, Employee (Last, First)

Column Display Fields

None

🧠 Alternatively, you could choose to use the Hours Pivot report that is being used to reconcile payroll every pay period as explained in the articles: Payroll Reconciliation with QuickBooks Desktop or Payroll Reconciliation with Other Payroll Systems. Be sure to remove all filters except the correct Work Date Year & Work Date Month.

  • Compare the Base Labor Cost and Overtime Labor Cost on the Hours Pivot report to the same information written above from the End of Month Labor tab.

    • Note: There may be a few dollars variance due to rounding.

  • If they do match, filter the report to exclude any Pay Schedule or Employee(s) that do not need to be accrued.

  • If they do not match, be sure all the filters have been removed as stated above.

    • If the dollars still do not match and there is no specific reason they are not matching, submit a ticket to AspireCare for additional support.

  • Next, figure out the dates for that month that need to be accrued.

    • Dates from ___________ to ____________

    • An example if the month for the accrual is November and the pay period is 11/27 - 12/3 and was paid December 8th.

  • Add Work Date and filter to the dates to accrue.

  • Make sure the divisions are shown on the left.

  • Click the arrow to the left of Overhead division to be able to see the detail for overhead if it is necessary to enter that detail into the accounting system.

The Hours Pivot Report can be used to create the accrual journal entry for your accounting system.

  • Export this report to Excel by hovering over the Save icon and selecting Export to Excel.


Creating your Accrual Journal Entry in your Accounting System

  • Open the exported file for your Monthly Accrual.

  • Date the journal entry the last of the month for the payroll accrual

  • Debit the gross dollars from the Transactions by Account listed:

    • Enhancement Labor COGS

    • Indirect Labor - Mtg/Admin

    • Indirect Labor - PTO

    • Indirect Labor - ShopTime

    • Indirect Labor - Sick Leave

    • Install Labor COGS

    • Irrigation Labor COGS

    • Maintenance Labor COGS

    • Credit - Accrued Payroll


Reverse the Accrued Payroll Entry

It is necessary to add an additional journal entry dated the 1st of the following month to reverse the journal entry dated the last of the previous month. That journal entry needs to be reversed because the accrual only serves to move the few days of gross pay from one month to another.

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