What you’ll achieve
Connect Paiday Payroll to your accounting system (QuickBooks Online or Xero)
Import your chart of accounts as Accounting Codes (GL Codes)
Map payroll items using Presets and Fallbacks
Export paid payrolls to your ledger as two journal entries (accrual entry and payment entry)
Reconcile, report, and troubleshoot with confidence
Before you start
Make sure to have an active chart of accounts somewhere
Terminology
Accounting Codes = GL accounts you post to
Preset = a saved mapping for a payroll item type
Fallback = a default mapping used when no preset is present
Step 1 — Connect your accounting system
In Paiday Payroll, go to Settings → Integrations
Choose QuickBooks Online or Xero and click “Connect”
Sign in and approve access
You’ll return to Paiday Payroll with your accounting platform successfully connected
Notes
Only one provider can be connected at a time
If you later disconnect, your imported Accounting Codes will remain available in Paiday Payroll
Step 2 — Import your chart of accounts
Click “Import Accounts” to pull your latest accounts
Accounts are stored by provider ID to keep mappings stable, even if code numbers change
If you’ve made changes in your accounting system, you can re-import anytime
Notes
You can only import accounts that are of type: liability, expense and bank
Step 3 — Set required base accounts (once)
Once you’ve imported your accounts, you would first need to map your “Bank Account” and “Net Payroll Payable”
Bank account: the cash account used for payroll payments
Net Payroll Payable: the liability account used to hold net pay and withholdings until paid
Step 4 — Map your payroll items
You then need to map the rest of your imported accounts to payroll items in Paiday Payroll. These can be mapped using:
Presets: when creating presets, map specific payroll items to imported Expense and Liability accounts
eg: Cell Phone Allowance mapped to Bell Mobile Expense - 7128
Statutory withholdings presets are auto‑generated for every employee and employer subtype, including province‑specific WCB and Québec HSF where applicable
Presets you edit affect future payrolls; approved payrolls keep their existing mappings
Fallbacks: default mappings applied when the line item does not have a specific accounting code coming from a preset
Setting this ensures that all line items are captured in journal entries
Useful for items that don’t originate from a preset, like overtime, stat holiday pay, vacation pay, etc.
eg: overtime earning has not defined expense code mapped to it will fallback to Overtime Expense - 3310
Recommended approach:
Create presets where you need reporting detail
Define broad fallbacks for earnings buckets like salary, wages, bonuses to avoid gaps in journal entry reports
Validation rule of thumb:
Every line item must resolve to either a preset or a fallback before export
Step 5 — Test with a sample pay run
Run a test payroll (ideally in sandbox)
Fix any unmapped categories flagged in Paiday Payroll before exporting
Review totals by account and any dimensions you use (departments, projects)
Step 6 — Export a pay run
Approve the pay run
Click Export to QuickBooks, or Xero
Open your accounting system and verify journals
Important
Export is available for Paid payrolls only, not drafts or un‑paid approvals
What gets created:
Two journal entries per pay run:
Record Payroll: debits wages and employer expenses, credits statutory withholdings and net payroll payable
Pay Payroll: clears payroll payable to bank when the payment is recorded
Line item detail
Statutory deductions post as separate lines even if mapped to the same account, to preserve detail
Reconciliation and reporting
Match the Pay Payroll journal to your bank transaction
Compare the Record Payroll journal totals to your pay run
If you use departments or projects, validate those appear as expected in your ledger
Journal Entry Report (JER) in Paiday Payroll respects presets and fallbacks for reporting
Troubleshooting
Error: “All presets must have accounting codes before exporting”
Ensure each business preset used by the pay run has both an Expense and a Liability account selected
Missing mapping on export
Add a preset or a fallback for the flagged category, then export again
Wrong account used
Update the preset, reverse or void the journal in your accounting system, then re‑export
Duplicate journals
Void the duplicate in your accounting system and export once
Connection issues
Reconnect in Settings and re‑import accounts