A PDF summary and a bookkeeper who rekeys it
After each run, the bureau sends the client a payroll summary. Their bookkeeper, or their accountant, takes gross pay, employer NI, pension, deductions and net pay from the PDF and enters a journal in Xero. They split it across departments by hand, because the client wants wages by site.
Sometimes the journal is late. Sometimes employer pension goes to the wrong account. When the bookkeeper changes, the new one does it differently. And the wages control account never quite clears, so someone spends time at year end reconciling it.
Why the handoff is manual
Payroll software can export journals, but the export uses the software's own account codes. Each client's ledger has its own chart of accounts, tracking categories and preferences. Somebody has to translate, and it is usually the client's side that does it, by hand, each period.
Direct integrations exist in some payroll packages for some ledgers, but they need setting up per client, and a bureau with a mix of packages and ledgers ends up with some clients connected and many not.
What rekeyed journals cost
Clients' management figures are late or wrong on their biggest cost line. Wages control accounts build up unexplained balances. The client's bookkeeper spends time every period on data that already exists in structured form at the bureau. And when the figures disagree, the bureau gets drawn into reconciling someone else's ledger.
| Payroll figure | Typical ledger treatment the client may want |
|---|---|
| Gross pay | Wages by department or site |
| Employer NI | Separate cost line, by department |
| Employer pension | Pension cost by department |
| Employee deductions | Liability accounts for HMRC and pension provider |
| Net pay | Wages control or net pay clearing account |
The table shows common patterns. Each client's own accountant decides the right treatment for their ledger.
How we build payroll journal posting
- For each client, we build a mapping from your payroll software's elements and cost centres to the client's accounts and tracking categories, agreed with the client's bookkeeper or accountant.
- After each run, the payroll figures are read from your software's journal export or API.
- The mapping turns them into a balanced journal, split by department or site as the client wants.
- The journal is posted as a draft into the client's Xero or QuickBooks through the ledger's API, or delivered as an import file for other ledgers.
- The client's bookkeeper approves the draft, and the bureau sees that it has been posted.
- When the client adds a department or changes an account, unmapped items are flagged at the next run rather than posted to a default account.
Access to each client's ledger is only with the client's permission, and is limited to posting the draft payroll journal.
Many bureaus also send clients a cost report by department alongside the journal. Because the mapping already knows each client's departments and sites, the same run can produce that report in the client's own categories, so the figures in their management pack and in their ledger come from one source and agree.
Payroll figures that arrive ready to use
Clients' ledgers show wages correctly split from the day of the run. Their bookkeepers stop retyping PDFs. Wages control accounts clear each period. And the bureau's service is worth more to clients, because the payroll does not stop at the payslip but lands correctly in their books.
Is this how your payroll reaches clients' books?
- Clients' bookkeepers rekey your payroll summaries.
- Wages by department or site are split by hand.
- Clients' wages control accounts rarely clear.
- Only some clients have a direct payroll to ledger link.
- You get drawn into reconciling clients' payroll postings.